


Gotham Needs a Robin

by ava_jamison



Category: DCU, DCU - Comicverse, Nightwing (Comics), Red Robin (Comics), Robin (Comics)
Genre: Case Fic, Gen, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-15
Updated: 2012-10-16
Packaged: 2017-11-16 09:47:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/538164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ava_jamison/pseuds/ava_jamison
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the bagman for a drug kingpin gets murdered, Robin jumps in to solve it and tries, like always, to be the best. Even when Batman's out of town. Maybe especially then. Dick doesn't make it easy, but that's only because Tim won't let him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sistermagpie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sistermagpie/gifts).



Cold, that much he knew. Cold and darkness and it hurt. The truck lurched forward and his body lurched forward with it, captive and bound. His feet were bare, swinging free, so they’d taken his boots. His boots and his belt and his gauntlets. Tim tested his hands, flexed them and tested them within the bonds encircling his wrists. His fingers closed around the icy metal hook crooking down from the ceiling, jangling the links of the chain that connected his handcuffs. The truck pitched and the slab of beef hanging closest to him swung at him and slammed his ribs, which hurt even more than the back of his head where they’d knocked him out.  


Tim didn’t know how long he’d been unconscious, and he listened for anything that might tell him where they were taking him. They were on a paved road and going, what? More than fifty-five but less than seventy. Something respectable so they wouldn’t get pulled over, not with him in the back. They had to be on the Midtown Freeway or maybe Logerquist Memorial, unless he’d been out a lot longer than he thought. Tim twisted on his tether, getting as much of a 360 as he could, but it was just more of the same, sides of beef or pork hanging around him, and beyond that, darkness. 

The meat wagon slowed, and Tim’s heart hammered, but then the truck accelerated again and he relaxed just the barest fraction. They weren’t taking an exit. Not yet. He had time to get out of this before they stopped. He had to have time to get out of this before they stopped and unloaded the meat. Carved it up. Tim shuddered, pushing away the image of the dirty bone saw, replacing it with something more conducive to escape. What would Dick do right now? 

He closed his eyes and tried to imagine just what Dick would do and after a moment he opened them and tensed his feet, his calves, his thighs. Breathing in deeply, he drew his legs back, then kicked forward, swinging, the pendant on the end of the chain from which he hung. Slowly he built his momentum, arms straining, chain scraping raspy metallic on the meat hook as his bare feet swam forward and up before bending his knees on the downward arc. Again and again he did that, and he thought – the whole time knowing, as if he were watching from outside himself – how odd it was that he thought of his mother. A fleeting, rare memory of her when he’d been very young, doing something she only did once. In the darkness behind his eyelids he could see her that day, that one only time, when she taught him how to swing on the swings. He could see her very clearly, what she was wearing, her sunglasses pushed up on top of her head because it was late afternoon in autumn and they were the last people in the park down the street from their house. Everyone else had left, and his mother climbed into the swing beside him, holding the chains and leaning back. “Stick out your legs, Timmy,” she said, “then fold them back,” and Tim surged his legs forward and back in the frigid dark truck that smelled of blood. 

Further and further and higher and higher he went in that swing, over the playground, until slowly the picture in his memories changed, and Dick was beside him on the parallel bars. “Yeah, Tim, you got it,” Dick said, and in the truck, Tim swung closer and closer to the side of beef hanging at 10 o’clock. Leaning back and pumping up, he swayed as the truck swayed, shooting his feet out toward the carcass beside him. It wasn’t so different from catching a parallel bar, except that he was bound and concussed and Dick wasn’t there to cheer him on. His toes flailed and scrabbled, slipping down and off the cold wet flesh, sending the arches of his feet slapping against each other, clasping around nothing, over and over. Tim gritted his teeth and tried to get a better grip on the hook holding him, maybe hoist himself a little higher, but it wasn’t possible; he’d lost the circulation to his hands, hanging like this, all his blood draining down, and awful images came to mind. Abattoir he didn’t need, because he wasn’t going to slaughter, he was getting off this hook before the truck even stopped.  


Tim squeezed his eyes shut and conjured his mom and that one time on the swing set together. For a split second he wondered why she’d even done it, why she’d spent the time with him, paid him the attention, but then the truck took a wide turn and from the jerk of it he knew the meat wagon had taken an exit ramp now so he started pumping again, just like she’d shown him. The carcasses threw one way and then the other but Tim’s own arc was strong and controlled. He pulled himself up into the air, straining every muscle in his body as he tensed, legs and fingers and toes stretching as far as they could go, rubbing slickly down the cold, dead animal, only to slide off into dark nothing. 

He needed the side of beef for leverage, like in the cave he’d need the next parallel bar to grab and hold, and there it was Dick, guiding him in the darkness. With his voice and his smile and a small but firm shove, Dick had taught him in the cave and now Tim forced himself forward here. Not Dick’s smooth, effortless glide, but a twisting, concentrated lunge from the pivot point of the hook that held him, and this time he spread his legs at the top of the arc and felt the arches of his feet slide down the sides of the thing, bumping over rib and bone. He stopped them though, before they dropped off, and hooked his ankles together, stretching his body between the hook at his wrists and the carcass he gripped with his ankles. Now he could barely swing at all, but while everything else around him vibrated and swayed Tim shimmied his feet a little higher, dragging himself up by inches. The truck rumbled and shook and every now and then something heavy thudded above his head, like they’d hit a branch or even a low overpass before an intermittent pattern began to thump there, starting softly but growing loud and consistent, rain falling on the roof of the meat wagon.

Tim worked his way up, straining and his legs clamped hard until finally he had the shoulders of the side of beef between his knees. He closed his eyes in the darkness, permitting himself one five-breath kata. Then he exhaled and clenched his fingers before edging the chain that ran between his cuffs upwards, up the curve of the meat hook. One of the links must’ve been bent because they caught just as he almost had freed himself but that wasn’t going to stop Robin after he’d come so far. Pushing with his thighs, Tim strained his shoulders and stretched his fingers so much they ached before he gave a final hard thrust, dredging up every last bit of energy and grace he’d ever thought he had, just like Dick. And just in time, because the truck was slowing down.

#####

In the darkest corridor of the south side of the shipyards the wind picked up, clouds blacking out a bloated yellow moon. A storm was coming, and the air was heavy with it, thick with it, but still it did not rain. On the dark horizon lightning sparkled and glittered, yet here with Tim on the rooftop the harbor was still and stagnant and nothing washed the filth away.  


Three days. He had three whole days to turn this around, get these guys off the streets, get their drugs off the streets. Three days before Bruce returned, three days without Batman, three days to prove what Tim Drake could do. 

Below him, men wheeled crates down the dock and into a waiting eighteen-wheeler and Tim‘s camera snapped them, recording their transgressions at least, even if he couldn’t yet bring them in. He was zooming in on the mook in a security uniform when he sensed something behind him and turned his head, snapping a picture as that something ground down on him from above, a sleek silhouette that came into focus as it got closer, fluid glide becoming something defined and sharp, blue bolt on black unmistakable, smile white in the darkness.

“Nightwing,” Tim said before Dick’s feet even hit the roof beside him, nailing it, smooth and perfect. “Something up?”

Dick’s grin ebbed a little at whatever he saw on Tim’s face and sure, Tim felt a pang of guilt over that, but then Dick’s smile came back, though it was smaller and less easy. Below them men rolled cargo into an eighteen-wheeler and Dick took it in soundlessly. Then he said, “That’s the truck that got hijacked on Trigate Bypass.” He hunkered down beside him and went to bump his shoulder to Tim’s but Tim slipped out of the way. 

“I’m aware, Nightwing.”

Dick’s breath gusted against his ear as he huffed out something soundless, mock-wounded. When Tim didn’t respond he tried again, quiet. “What’s the score, Boy Wonder?”

“You heard the report.”

Dick started to say something but thunder boomed, so he just held out his hand until Tim handed over the camera. “Big storm on its way and Robin’s out here on stakeout for flat screens?”

Tim didn’t answer.

Dick focused his lens. “Crates are too small.”

“Not the ones they already loaded.”

“So what’s in those?”

“Not sure yet.” 

Lightning crackled and Nightwing's teeth gleamed x-ray white in the sudden flash. “Okay, spill. What’re you working on?”

“Drugs,” he said, and then his words came in a rush of excitement. “Crackle. Methyl benzo-carboxylate. I think I’ve found a huge source of incoming Crackle.”

“What?” Dick’s domino stretched as his eyebrows went up, quick shoulder punch to go with it. “No you didn’t!”

“Yes, I did.”

Dick didn’t say anything for a minute, just looked him up and down and it seemed like he schooled his face, and Tim prickled in a way that was strange, considering who was looking at him. Dick was the one who was easy with his praise and yet now he was holding back. “Okay,” he said finally. “Two things. For now, anyway, while we’re out in the field. First of all, you really think it’s a good idea to do this without telling anybody?”

“I don’t need backup. I’m just testing a theory about who’s behind the operation.”

“So who is it?”

“I’d really rather wait and explain the whole thing to you.”

“How’d you crack this?”

“Just good detective work, Nightwing.” 

Dick laughed, making the come on signal with his hand. “Who’s behind it?”

“Hieronymus Bullenwinder.”

“Mr. Big Stuff.” Dick looked suitably impressed. “I’m assuming you have a plan.”

Tim snorted.

“Which you’re not sharing right now because?” 

“I was going to tell you.”

“Really?”

“Really.” Tim shuffled down further in his crouch. “What’s the second thing?”

“I notice you didn’t say anything about the big guy at all. And I don’t mean Bullenwinder.”

“No, I was waiting…”

“To show off when he got back.” Dick blew out a breath, frustrated. “You held out on me, too.”

“You got a lot of room to talk,” Tim said, words coming out sharper than he’d meant. “I saw you spying on me last night.”

“That wasn’t spying.”

“Okay, it's official, Nightwing. You’ve been around Bruce too long.”

“Oh, Robin.” Dick laughed. “Think about it. If I’d been spying on you, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.” He sighed dramatically and draped his hand over Tim’s shoulder. “Because you’d never’ve known I was there.”

“Oh yeah?” Tim pushed him away. “Look I know what you’re doing.”

“Giving you a hard time? Looking for a rumble? Hanging out at the docks?”

“Checking up on me. Bruce told you—”

“This has nothing to do with Bruce.”

“Alfred, then.”

Dick just rolled his eyes. “So what’s the plan, James Bond?”

“Plan’s already in place.”

“Should I be expecting fireworks? Ninja robots?

“Mission’s accomplished.”

“Was your mission to…” Dick hesitated, scanning the area. “Take pictures?” 

Tim shrugged, and Dick grabbed his shoulders, shaking them fondly. “You can’t solve every problem in life just by stalking people!” 

“Worked on you.”

“Got you this gig, anyway. Looking for a new career in drug-running?”

“I thought maybe, you know, just in my free time.” Tim snuck another look past Dick at the men with the crates. “So… you’re going back Bludhaven tonight?”

“Whoa! Smooth segue.”

“Hey, one of us should be on patrol! If you’re not going to Bludhaven, at least take the Upper West side.”

Dick snorted and shook his head but his smile was back and natural again and something in Tim relaxed a little. Bruce’s brush-offs never seemed to bother Dick at all, but Tim felt hurt rolling off the guy if he so much as sidestepped a hug. It was annoying, especially when he had a job to do. So the solution, it seemed, was to let Dick help. The wind picked up, whipping at Tim’s cape. “I’ll meet you in the Bowery.”  
“You want to follow them.” Dick took the camera, surveying the scene below. “You want to get me out of your hair and follow them. You got a tracker on the truck or in the cargo?” 

“The truck, but—”

“How do you know they didn’t find it?”

“They didn’t find it.”  
Dick pressed his lips together for a second, like he was holding words in his even though he didn’t want to, and slowly breathed out through his nose. “You know, Tim I remember being young once too. Young and Robin.” He paused, thinking. “Young and Robin with Batman out of town. But you can’t fix the whole city while he’s gone. And you can’t take crazy chances for…” He smiled. “For whatever this is.”

“Not trying to.”

“You can’t even bust a whole drug ring while he’s gone. I mean, you could - I know you could. But come on. It’d really piss him off.”

“Patrol’s right after this.” The truck was almost loaded. They weren’t bringing out any more crates, and one guy was heading for the cab of the truck. Tim could almost hear the keys jingle, if only Dick would stop arguing with him. “I’m not going to take on the whole ring; I just want to know where they’re taking this load.” Tim said. “Look, go ahead and follow me; I know you’re GPSing my bike.” He held out his hand for the camera.

Dick wasn’t in a hurry to hand it over, though. He peered at the screen, aim sweeping across the harbor. “That bike?”

“What?” Tim grabbed the Canon from Dick, fingers fumbling as it zoomed for focus. Yeah, his bike. One of the goons was sitting on it, grinning as he walk-rolled it over while the fake security guard he’d fingered for the guy in charge waved a hand and someone else started a once-over.

“They can’t have my bike,” Tim said, horrified. “Dick, they can’t.”

“They’re not going to,” Nightwing squared his shoulders. “You want high or low?”

Below them, one of the thugs started his bike's motor, and Tim couldn’t even breathe. “How did they even… I safety locked it, Nightwing!”

“Go get ‘em, Robin.”

Tim shot his grapple, pushed off, and hurtled down off the edge of the building. He came around solid, feet swinging out, boots landing square and sure against the rider’s shoulders. The impact knocked the jerk clear off his bike. “Should’ve worn a helmet,” Robin said, just for Nightwing. He flipped, rolled and landed, then took out the guy he’d pegged as second-in-command with a one-two combo, knocking the smoke out of the lowlife’s mouth and his feet out from under him. The thug next to him pulled out a Glock, but he didn’t have it long. Tim sent it clattering to the ground, and the guy who’d held it followed, face-first. “Sorry about the road rash,” he said, almost under his breath but Nightwing still heard him, and that spurred Tim on: Dick’s laugh, good and safe and familiar, carrying across the space between them as Nightwing did a triple axel down from the warehouse, landing with a thud on the roof of the eighteen-wheeler just as the rain really started to fall. 

Nightwing’s landing was crowned by a somersault downwards toward the roof of the cab. He  
slid down in between the open driver’s side door and the driver, who was revving the engine and trying to get the door shut but couldn't, because: Nightwing. Who dragged the poor sucker out of the cab and even over the sound of Nightwing's fist connecting with a man’s face, Tim could hear Dick’s, “Shouldn’t pick up hitchhikers, buddy.” 

Tim snorted and yeah, it was stupid, but he did smile before he felled one of the last two mooks who hadn’t been smart enough or fast enough to run away, or maybe it was that he was the head honcho and he cared more for his inventory than the others. Tim planted a foot on the man’s chest, right under his security badge that read ‘Kelly’. “Can you swim, Kelly?”

“Huh?” the guy said, shaking his head, and Robin repeated himself syllable-by-syllable, Batman serious. The guy looked from Robin to Nightwing to the edge of the dock and chose. “Yeah. Yeah I can swim.”

“Shouldn’t have messed with my bike,” Tim said and the guy made a satisfying splash. Now the all that was left was the driver, who Dick had by the collar. 

“Okay, start talking,” Dick said but the guy only shrugged and then passed out, so Dick dropped him, joining Tim at the back of the truck, which opened with a squeal of metal. 

“Refrigerated?” Dick said, as a gust of cold air surged past them. “Crackle needs refrigeration?”

“I don’t know.” Tim squinted in the darkness at the crates as they climbed up with the cargo. “You need a light?”

“In my boot.”

“Of course it is.” Tim pressed his extra flashlight into Nightwing’s hand. “Lucky I’m around. Me and Bruce have been wanting to talk to you about that.”

“There comes a time, in a young hero’s life, when he finds himself, more and more often, thinking of utility belts.”

“Yeah, well, he’s right. Faster, easier access to your tools. Shine it here.” Tim leveraged his telescoping crowbar and pried a crate open along one side. Wood shavings and sawdust spilled out over Dick’s feet, along with something heavy that skittered to the floor of the eighteen-wheeler. 

“What was that?” Dick jerked his feet away like maybe some kind of creepy animal was down there and shined light to follow something that rolled across the floor of the truck. “It’s…” they both stepped closer.

“A salami.”

“That was a lot of muscle for salami.”

Tim tipped the crate he’d just cracked and the contents thumped to the lowest corner. “It’s a lot of salami.” He dug through the excelsior, then sliced one of the things in half. It looked fine.

“I got a friend in Bludhaven,” Dick said, reading his mind. “Retired cop with a couple of retired drug dogs.”

“I have my own expert, Nightwing.”

“Fine.” Dick aimed his light around the cramped interior, pausing on the rear cargo area and a handful of much larger crates. “Well, there are the flat screens. But look, don’t those…”

“Yeah. Too big.”

“And they’re not… flat. Whatever’s in there’s not flat at all.”

About twenty minutes later they’d cleared the crates enough to get close to the one of the larger ones, shuffling boxes out of the end of the truck like taking a puzzle apart. “That’s big enough to put a body in.” 

“Heavy enough, too.” Dick pushed at the crate and something dense thudded inside, large and solid. The sound was… not completely unfamiliar, and they both looked at each other, preparing for the worst. Tim jimmied it open, and stepped out of the way just in time as something large and heavy and indeed, big enough to be a body, fell out of the crate. It was a side of beef. 

“Still frozen,” Dick said, kneeling to poke it with his flashlight. “What gives? Tim made the “I don’t know” sound and Dick swept the beam of the flashlight into the dark corners of the truck. “You know how many got loaded in?”

“No, I was too busy talking to you.”

“Take it easy, I’m not telling Bruce.” Dick surveyed the truck interior. “I bet there’s seventy-five, maybe? I can’t tell what size those over there are, behind the pile of square ones.”

“Noted. Your point?”

“Gonna be a long night.” Dick jingled a set of keys.”This mean anything to you? MH413?”

“Could mean a lot of things,” Tim said carefully. “Here, coming off the driver, I guess?” Dick nodded. “It’s an address – Miller Harbor 413.”

“So how many more crates you want to go through before we go check it out?”

“It’s not like they’re going anywhere.” Tim snagged the keys.

##### 

Whatever was inside, there were no sentries at 413. Just a grimy warehouse and cold dark quiet that meant every move echoed in the derelict and eerie silence. The beam of Tim’s torch broadcast its arc over piles of seemingly unrelated things. Electronics, in various stages of assembly, high-end manufacturing machinery and a jumble of old furniture made up most of it, including oriental rugs and at least three pairs of contraband ivory tusks. The area closest to the overhead doors was the most compelling, although not in a comfortable way. A bone saw, a large table that might have once been Formica laminate stained with blood, and next to this makeshift butcher platform a rather ominous meat truck, flanked by two large barrels of water, their surface scummy with surfactants and old grime that perhaps thankfully obscured whatever might dwell under the murk. Robin braced himself and tipped first one, then the other of the barrels forward, their contents sluicing over rough concrete and draining to a grate. He let out a breath when it was over and the only things collected in the trap were a few gray rags.

“Ready?” Dick said, and Tim said he was as Nightwing dragged open the back of the meat truck, but they needn’t have prepared themselves. It was empty. Tim climbed in just to make sure. He was working on a prototype for a sonic transducer to detect cavitation but it was back in the lab, so he had to knock on the walls to check for hidden panels, boots slipping a little on the slick-sticky surface.

“Wow,” Dick said, turning around to take in the whole place. “What the heck?”

“Smuggling.” Tim said. “The cargo comes in with drugs, and then the drugs get prepped here, maybe.” He took a sample of the fluids coating the interior of the truck.

“Electronics, antiques and meat? Kind of a diffuse focus. Your bad guy needs to specialize.” Dick tapped his comlink. “Come out of the truck so you can hear the police channel.”

“What is it?” 

“Don’t know. I can only hear about every third word, but something’s up.”

Tim pulled up the GPD frequency. They both looked toward the roof, and then walked silently in tandem out of the warehouse, where the signal got better. They stood under a lip of roof and the wind tasted of the storm. Dick got his signal cleared first. “A body. In Aparo Gardens.” 

“Not that unusual.”

“Chatter says he’s important.”

“In Aparo Gardens? Must be slumming.”

“Robin,” Dick said, and it was his corrective tone. Then he changed gears. “Wait, it’s Frank Grauwyler. Why does that sound familiar…?”

“I don’t know.” Tim looked around at the silent dockyard. “I don’t think there’s anything here, so…”

“Wait a minute,” Dick said. “You know that name.”

Tim hummed a non-response.  


Dick’s eyes narrowed. “So do I.”

“Grauwyler. The Growler, they called him. Worked for Bullenwinder until Batman got him a few years back.” He squinted at Tim, apparently deciding to give him a hard time. “So, you know, worked for the same guy you think’s running the drug smuggling.” 

Tim nodded, figuring out how soon he could get to his bike. “Or was. Weren’t you going to call your friend? The ex-narc?”

“No, no. It’s alright. You can stay here with your project and talk to your expert. I’ll go see what’s up in the Gardens. I’m sure it’s all a coincidence.” 

“No way, Nightwing. Batman would absolutely want me to go check this out.”

“You sure about that?” Dick said, totally giving him a hard time.

“Nightwing, I gotta go see about this.” Tim wanted to run to his bike, and he took a step but guilt made him stop. “Look, you want to come?”  
Dick’s smile was only slightly strained, and it made some anxious part of Tim relax just a little. “Thought you’d never ask, Boy Wonder.”

Tim revved the engine, rolling to a stop in front of Nightwing. “Hop on?” 

“Sure,” Dick climbed on, easy and graceful, and rested his gauntlets on Tim’s hips. “My bike’s behind the old cannery.”


	2. Chapter 2

They made good time, moving fast. It rained and then they reached a part of town that had dry streets still and at first Tim thought they would outrun the storm, that they were racing ahead of it as much as they were racing each other, vying back and forth for first place, but they’d just crossed the Thirteenth-Street Viaduct when the rain started on them again, and it did not start lightly. One moment there were dry streets and the next moment the sky opened wide and disgorged forth a deluge of a storm; Gotham’s gutters poured out rivers of gray filth and the streets turned slick and black. Drenched, Robin beat Nightwing by a heartbeat, pulling up beside four squad cars and right in front of the 1700 Block of Sprang Place, next to an empty lot swarming with cops. 

Garden Villas was an old brick apartment building next to the empty lot, five tired stories caged by burglar bars on the lower half and fire escapes the rest of the way up. On the other side of the lot were more apartments, and on their first floor, a small strip of shops: a dry cleaners, a small grocery, a jeweler’s and a tiny coffee shop all clustered in a row, canopied and consolidated by torn awning flapping in the rain. Under it, a small crowd of onlookers huddled, held at bay by a flatfoot at the far end. Opposite that group, closer to the lot, Tim could see Commissioner Gordon and two of his men, sheltered from the rain and watching the body bag arrive.“Robin,” Gordon said. “And Nightwing. Nice to see you over here in Gotham.”

Dick nodded. “Commissioner.” 

“Got one of Hieronymous Bullenwinder’s top bagmen over there,” Gordon said. “Somebody wanted him dead so bad they tried to shoot him, and then he either fell or was pushed - I’m betting on pushed, off a roof. Landed in the empty lot, in the mud.” He nodded to the cop beside him. “Show him.” When neither Tim nor Dick moved, he raised an eyebrow. 

“Nightwing? Should I be expecting anyone else?”

“No,” Nightwing and Robin both said at the same time¸ and Dick looked from Gordon to Tim and then back again. “I’ll let your guy over there take a break from the crowd control.” He nodded toward the cop at the other end of the awning, who was trying to simultaneously keep the small crowd at bay and reattach the plastic raincover on the brim of his hat. 

Gordon blinked at Dick’s back. “Show _him_ then,” he said, and Robin followed the detective out into the rain.

The two of them slipped through a hole cut recently in the chain link and Tim trudged through mud, water dripping down the back of his neck. Three cops held a tarp over the victim and underneath, a man lay sprawled in the muck, arms and legs at impossible, splayed angles. His face was in the mud, right cheek down, and left eye staring sightlessly at nothing. Frank Grauwyler wore a suit, and over that a dark coat, darker because it was wet, and darkest of all surrounding a ragged bullet hole. “Was it the fall or the bullet?” he asked, but no one wanted to speculate yet, standing in the pouring rain, or maybe it was just that they didn’t want to tell him, but he gave up and decided to wait for the reports. They probably didn’t know much more than he did at this point and besides, he’d already hijacked most of the main station’s data feeds. 

After the body was loaded up, Tim looped the perimeter, then slipped through an opening to circle the building alone, by way of the back alley, making a full circle going between the apartment building and another building on its right, then around the front of the apartment and past its small lobby, brightly lit and with a half-dozen gawkers. When he got back to where he’d started, he ducked back under the awning, stopping a few feet from where Dick was supposed to be keeping the onlookers at bay. And sure, they weren’t stomping through the crime scene, but Dick was pretty much just one of them, only in a Nightwing uniform, telling stories about… what, Tim wasn’t actually sure, but probably about Batman and Robin, judging just by the look on the people’s faces. 

He almost moved close enough to hear, but Gordon saw where Tim was looking and snorted at him with a small hint of a smile before yelling to a cop out in the rain. “Cleary, give Nightwing a spell here.” To Tim, he said, “Well?” 

“Who called it in?”

“All we know so far is some woman.” Gordon jerked his chin toward the crowd around Dick and Tim turned to look. “My money’s on her, but who knows.” Dick was stepping away, letting the cop take over again, but a woman in a scarf stopped him and handed him something. Two things, actually: one for each hand. Dick smiled and nodded and took what she handed him. “Coffee?” he said when he got to Tim.

“No thanks.”

Dick hefted a cup toward Gordon. “Commissioner?” 

“Robin’s loss is my gain.”

“She made it just for us, too.”

Gordon raised an eyebrow.

“Well, me and Robin. I think she has a thing for Batman, really.” 

Tim looked from her and back to Nightwing and then to Gordon. “So what’s plan?”

“One of my detectives found a .357 on the roof. Running the usual checks.” He sighed. “We’re behind already. When we got here the electricity was out and it slowed everything down.”

Dick nodded. “Going door to door?” 

“You want a floor?”

Tim answered before he’d finished asking the question. “Yes.”

“What about the rest of them over here?” Dick jerked his head back toward the people he’d just been talking with. 

“Be my guest.” Gordon wiped at his mustache. “I’m going to check on the progress with my head detective.” He turned his collar up for the walk to the apartment building. “Robin?”

“Right here, sir.” 

#####

By the time Dick joined him again, Tim was dry except for a few damp spots in the folds of his Kevlar that chilled him as he sat in the building manager’s apartment. Gordon and the cops had left him on his own, finally, and Tommy Hopper, a bulldog of an old man with a grayed burr haircut, sat with him at a dinette table in the dimly lit railroad-style apartment. Behind them, an old woman lay on a couch pulled out and made into a bed, snoring softly, and in front of him on the table, Tim’s recorder caught every word. The super, Hopper, had left his front door slightly open after he allowed Tim access in, like maybe he didn’t want to be caught alone with Robin, and this partially-open door had clued in Dick. The sound of Dick’s chair scraping when he pulled it out to sit down woke the old woman and she sat up in her nightgown, the left side of her face frozen in a droop. She tried to speak, and then she started to stand, but Hopper got up first and went to her. He patted her shoulders and told her to go ahead and rest. That yes, they had visitors, but she didn’t need to get up. She responded with a series of nonsense syllables and while he pulled up her blanket for her in the dark corner of the room he said to Tim, “Like I told the cops, I was working down on the fourth floor. Got an empty unit, and I was working on getting it ready.”

“At ten o’clock at night.”

“You got a hearing problem? I got a boss, I do what he says. He wants the place ready for October 1.” 

“So you heard the shot,” Dick said. “What time?”

“Right after the lights went out, is all I know.”

“Does that happen often here?”

“It happens. Old wiring, old fuses.” 

“So then what?”

“Then, I’m climbing down my ladder to go check the fuse box and I hear a shot.”

“Where’d it sound like it came from?”

“Above me. Sounded further away than fifth floor. Had to be the roof.”

“Why’d you go check it out?”

“What’d you expect me to do? Ignore it?’

“No.” Tim sized the man up. “It’s just dangerous for civilians. Most people don’t.”

“I ain’t most people.” Hopper shrugged. “I was in ‘Nam. I’m careful. There wasn’t nothing on the fifth floor, not a sound, and then I think about Mendoza’s pigeons on the roof. I told him I’d watch ‘em when he’s gone.”

“Mendoza.” Tim checked the notebook he’d been scribbling in. “Carlos Mendoza?”

“No, Vince Mendoza. Like Vince’s Grocery over there. Carlos is his grandkid.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Anyway, I thought maybe some kid… I don’t know, we had a thing once where some kids got up there and tore things up, so what the hell, I figure I oughta go check.”

“It didn’t occur to you to call the police?”

The man frowned at Tim. “Phones here go out when the power goes. The kids got cell phones, but we don't and Julia wasn’t home.”

“And your grandson?” 

“Great-grandson. Julia’s boy. Too young for a phone, and not home anyway. Kid’s five. He was playing with one of the Guzman kids on two.”

“At ten o’clock at night. On a school night.”

“You got any kids, kid?”

“No.”

“Didn’t think so.”

“Those them?” Dick cut in, jerking his chin toward a framed picture just behind the man. “Good looking kids.” 

“Yeah. Yeah, they are.” 

“So Julia’s your granddaughter and her son, his name’s…”

“Joey. He’s a good kid. Sleeping now.”

He gestured at the old woman on the couch, and his expression softened. “Myra can’t do too much since her stroke but… those kids, we’re all they got.” He straightened, remembering himself. “You want to hear the rest or not?” At Tim’s nod, he continued. “So I get up to the roof, and as soon as I get up there, I see a guy laid out, bleeding. 

“And nobody else.”

“I see something move, like somebody going up and over the side of the roof, where the fire escape is. I hear a clang like he landed, and I figure he did, but that’s it.”

"Did you know the victim?"

"No."

“Had it started raining yet?”

“Just about too, but it’s dark and I’m paying more attention to the poor s.o.b. that got shot. So I see his chest is still moving up and down, so he’s alive, and then there’s another shot. It whooshes right by me like I’m back in ‘Nam so I dive. But he missed and then there ain’t no more shots. So I take a chance and try to get to the door, get down the stairs.” 

“Then what happened?”

The man shrugged. “I got family to look out for. I needed to check on Myra, down in our apartment. And Joey, with the Guzmans.”  
“Just so we know, you left the guy alive on the roof. Then you went back up there?”

“No, I didn’t. The electricity was out, see? I banged on a door and no answer – I just was going down banging on doors and somebody came racing past me and knocked me down. By then I hear sirens.”

“So you were in the stairwell?”

“I was down looking for Joey. The lights went out and he was supposed to be at the Guzmans, so I went down to check on him. I was… he was okay.” The man’s whole body sagged, and he rested his face in his hands. 

“Who lives on the top two floors?” Tim said, but the man’s shoulders were shaking.

“You okay?” Dick said.

“I’m just glad the kid’s okay,” he said, words muffled because he still didn’t look up. “We can’t lose him.”

Dick reached out and stopped the recording and pulled out a small notebook. “Robin’s been trying to find out a few things,” he said quietly. “He’s trying to piece this together and he talked to some of your neighbors, like I’m sure he told you.” Dick looked to Tim and kept looking as he said the next part. “He didn’t get any answers on the top two floors…” Dick waited while Tim nodded affirmative, once. “So we were wondering if you could fill us in. Then we’ll let you get some sleep.”

Hopper sighed. “Sure, if we can wind this up. 

“Fifth floor?” he said, and again the woman on the couch stirred, sitting up with a little croaking noise. 

“Go back to sleep, Myra,” Hopper growled. “She needs to get some sleep.” He ran a hand over his face. Fifth floor, Vince and Carlos Mendoza. Fishers on the other side, Irene and Doug. Fourth is two empty apartments. One I was working on and one the Jamaicans just moved out of."

The front door rasped on laminate and a young girl came in, pretty in a waitress uniform, close to the age of twenty, maybe a little older. 

“Bout time you got in,” the man said. “Where you been all night?”

“Sorry, Pop.” She stood there in the open doorway for a minute, staring, particularly at Nightwing and Dick smiled apologetically. “Sorry, Miss Hopper, didn’t mean to startle you. This is the partner I was looking for.” Dick motioned toward Tim. “Robin. And we were just leaving.”

“It’s late,” the girl said, and the woman on the couch moaned plaintively, a sound that was probably meant to approximate her name. 

“You're right.” Dick stood up and pushed the chair in with his knees. “Tim, you think we could finish this tomorrow? It’s three a.m.”

#####

“Anything else tonight?” Dick said after the door closed behind them.

“How’d you know the girl?”

“I met her across the street. You already got all the way up, right? 

“I knocked on every door.”

“And?”

“People either aren’t home, are pretending to not be home, or didn’t hear or see a thing.” 

“Par for the course.” 

“They should come clean if they don’t have anything to hide.”

“Cops at your door in the middle of the night’s never going to be good. I don’t blame ‘em.” 

They were on the stairwell, and one of Gordon’s men met them halfway down. “Nightwing? A lady wants to talk to you. Down in the lobby.” 

Tim frowned, because they were in Gotham. Whoever it was should’ve asked for Robin. Tim felt his teeth clench and he almost said something, but he didn't because what could he even say? He wanted to check on the roof again anyway. 

It had finally stopped raining and while there were fewer cops on the scene now than at the beginning, the roof was still fairly hectic. They let Tim take a look, because he was Robin, they said, and he wandered around. There was a pigeon loft up there, full of flustered white birds, and the hutch was big enough for a person to be inside it, hiding, if need be, or crouched beside it. The victim had been standing next to it, just like Hopper said, when he was shot. It was evident by what was left of the splatter pattern, sprayed against one side of the shack where some combination of the slope of the roof and the direction of the wind had kept some of the dead man’s blood from being washed away. Any footprints, anything left behind by the killer or anybody else? Gone with the rain. 

When Tim got down to the lobby, Dick was crouched on dingy linoleum talking to a little old lady in a pink quilted bathrobe with a small terrier. “Robin, this is Miss Emily Scott. She lives in the apartment building across the street. She was out earlier, just before the rain started.”

“I could tell a storm was coming and Barney hates to get his paws wet.”

“So tell Robin what you saw, Miss Scott.”

“First,” she said, obviously enjoying Dick’s attention, “was what I heard. I was right down out there on the sidewalk in front of my building and I heard a shot. Coming from up on this building.”

“So you called it in?” Tim asked.

“It wouldn’t have done any good. I thought about it, but they didn’t come last time I called.”

“Last time?”

“Or the time before that. They don’t care what happens here.”

“I’m going to look into that, Miss Scott,” Dick said, and Tim could tell they’d already covered that ground. “Keep going.”

“I looked out my window, after I got back to my apartment, and I saw what I told you about. All the lights off and that woman, on the roof.”

“And then?”

“I saw a man running from the building, and when I looked back up to the roof, the woman in white was gone.”

“Woman in white?” Tim asked but Dick shook his head, almost imperceptibly, and Tim shut his mouth.

“The man,” Dick said. “The man who you saw running out? Tell Robin who you think it was.”

“I know who it was,” the woman said. “It was Dwayne Cox, the jeweler. His shop’s right down on the first floor next door.”

“So you came back over here to tell the police?”

“To check on my friend Constance. I wanted to see if she was okay.”

“What did you tell them?”

“The police? What I told you. I don’t think they believed me. Maybe the part about Dwayne but not the rest.”

“We should take you home now. Would you like Robin to take Barney’s leash?” 

“He needs to be carried,” the woman said, and Tim realized he was about to get seriously muddy from the dog’s paws. He sighed and lifted the dog and Dick offered her his arm. She leaned heavily on him it was a slow go, the woman’s galoshes-covered feet shuffling. 

“So what was that all about?” he said when he and Dick left her at her door and made for their bikes, Tim’s red next to Dick’s blue. Just like old times. “She think she saw a ghost?”

Dick straddled his bike. “Not quite.” He shrugged, putting on his helmet. “I’ll fill you in at the cave.” He looked at Tim, who suddenly sneezed, before climbing on his own. “Man, Alfred’s going to have my hide. He told me to get you home before the rain hit.”

“See, I knew it!” Tim reached for his own helmet, but before he could get it on, Dick ruffled his freshly dried hair, and Tim knew it must be sticking out all weird. 

“Just whatever you do, don’t catch cold, okay? He doesn’t mind if you stop a drug ring or catch a murderer, but don’t catch cold.”

#####

“Good to know you’re not letting work spoil your digestion,” Alfred said as he took in the crime scene photo, a dead man huge and graphic on Bruce's computer screen. He put a mug of cocoa down next to the keyboard for Tim. 

“These are different,” Dick said around a cookie. 

“Black chokeberries instead of raisins. Some members of the family have recently been researching the health benefits of more exotic ingredients. Between the… is the correct word anthocyanin, Master Tim?””

“Yes. Superior anti-oxidants.” Tim muttered from Bruce’s chair.  
“Between those and the oyster nuts I had to go to the African market to purchase, we should all be extremely vigorous. Unlike the gentleman on the screen. At whom am I looking?” 

“Frank Grauwyler, Dick said. “AKA The Growler.”  
“Called that because?”

“Tracheotomy,” Tim said, and even he realized he sounded a little too over-excited for that particular word. “Lost his voice box in an accident like, twenty years ago. Dick, he just got out of prison after five years on felony property charges.” Tim opened a new window next to the dead man, and started scrolling a city map. “Back in 2005, he burned down a place a few blocks from where he died tonight. And get this: both that block and the one we were on tonight are owned by Hieronymus Bullenwinder.”

“Bullenwinder has extensive properties. He’s approached Wayne Enterprises,” Alfred said. “About investing. Our Mr. Fox sent him packing, of course. Doesn’t Bullenwinder have a sobriquet himself? Mr. Big Shot?”

“Close,” Tim said. “Mr. Big Stuff.” He shrugged. “It’s from some old song.” 

“B.S. for short, either way.”

“Thank you for your astute contribution, Master Dick.”

Tim tilted his head at the screen, panning the building across the street from Garden Villas. “You never said what was up with the old lady we walked home.” 

“Miss Scott? She heard the shots, and she saw something. She also watches… What's the name of that show about Gotham myths? Gotham’s Hidden Secrets?”

“Hidden Gotham City?” 

“Hidden Secrets of the City, Gotham Edition,” Alfred said quickly, then casually took a sip of his tea. Too casually.

“Yeah,” Dick said. “That one. So I guess they had an episode on Millicent Mayne?”

“Yes,” Alfred said, “and you needn't look at me like that, either of you. I am simply keeping up with the public’s perception of the same things you both deal with out there every night.”

Dick laughed.”Not going to argue with you.”

“Some of the information is very valuable. It’s helped the Batman on more than one occasion.”

Dick put up his hands. “Okay, okay I give. So the episode about Mayne. What did they say about her?”

“They called her ‘The Veil: The movie star who disappeared.’ It went into her supposed origin, when a jilted lover scarred her face and how Miss Mayne is thought to appear to lost souls and those in need of her wisdom. It aired last Thursday, if you’re wondering whether it influenced your witness. It might have. The reenactments, though a bit hammy, were reasonably compelling.”

“Huh,” Dick said. “So Miss Scott’s out there with her dog and she hears shots. She looked up at the roof of the apartment building across the street from her, and there are two people on the roof. She says one of them is a man and he’s our victim “

“And the other was the Veil of Gotham?”  
“Bingo.”

Alfred frowned thoughtfully. “What were they doing? And did Grauwyler die from a gunshot or because of a fall?”

“I’m waiting to find out. So far the… hang on.” Tim clicked and typed for a second. “The autopsy says he had massive internal injuries but not enough blood loss to kill him. Does she think The Veil pushed him off the roof?”

Dick shrugged. “If she did, Miss Scott didn’t see it.”

“If I were Millicent Mayne, I’d be thinking about the lost souls who have suffered because of Bullenwinder. A man who deals in drugs, extortion and arson must have ruined many lives.” Alfred was staring off into space and Tim thought he was done when he said, very quietly and more to himself than not, “If I were her, I might want to push him off myself.” 

“You may have a point.” Dick was staring at the map of the block up on the screen. “Okay, so there are four shops in this building next to the empty lot where the body was, right? That grocery, at the end? Belongs to a missing man.” 

“Who lives on the fifth floor across the street. Those are his pigeons on the roof.”

“Exactly. But scan back up, Tim.” 

“I see it too. Pretty big coincidence.”

Tim turned so that Alfred wouldn’t be left out. “That grocery that burned down six years ago in Gates Heights? The reason Grauwyler went to prison? Looks like that belonged to Mendoza, too. Well, it belonged to Bullenwinder but Mendoza rented the store from him. He rented the store that burned down, he rents this store that’s been closed for two days, he rents an apartment on the fifth floor, and those are his pigeons up there on the roof where the Growler got shot.”

“But Mendoza’s sure not in the picture tonight,” Dick said. “You talk to your guy at GPD, Tim?”

“Both Vince and the son who lives with him are MIA.” A small alarm beeped on the computer and Tim opened a new screen. “Got it. GPD doesn’t know it yet, but I do. The gun they found on the roof is registered to somebody named Leonard Oslo.”

“That’s the guy who owns the dry cleaners. His wife brought us the coffee.”

“You get any info from her?”

“She had a lot to say about everything. Don’t know which of its any help. Grauwyler came around last night. Twice, and both times looking for Mendoza. First time, near as she can remember, dusk. He wants to know where the guy is and she says she doesn’t know and then the Growler’s gone. So she closes up shop at 8, but she and her husband stay, because they do alterations and have a big wedding. She’s sewing at her machine when he shows up again. After he passes her place she hears the coffee shop door open so she guesses he goes in there. But she doesn’t see him go out. She did look up later and see the lights were out across the street, and the next thing she knows the cops are all pulling up. But she’s the one who made us the coffee, right? Guess where she made it? She’s got a key to the coffee shop next door and even though they were closed, she let herself in. She and the woman who runs it are friends, but the friend’s getting cancer treatment, so she and a couple of employees have been running it for her. And you want to know who one of those employees is? Julia Hopper.”

“How come you get all the breaks? And what’d she say?"

“Not wuite all the breaks. She wasn’t the one working when the Growler came in, so she doesn’t know anything. Julia was out last night but when she came home and saw the cops she came over to the dry cleaners first. I guess she's friends with the coffee lady.”

“Who _was_ working when Grauwyler came in?” 

“Some girl named Sandra. Same person who works the morning shift tomorrow.” Dick sat down on the arm of the chair. “So what you got?”

“Not much.” Tim pulled up a set of blueprints on the computer, and whipped out his tablet, adding notes from it to an overlay on the blueprint. “Scene of the crime: five storey walk-up, two apartments each floor. First floor has the Hoppers – that’s the place you good-copped us out of. Next to them a woman with a couple of kids. Didn’t hear anything over the piano playing.”

“Piano?”

“Woman above her, Miss Scott’s friend. Is a crazy lady with a piano.” 

“How crazy? ” 

“I bet she’s got a dozen cats in there, judging by the smell. She wouldn’t open her door past the chain but that was enough. I think she’s close to blind, too. She didn’t want to talk to me. ” 

“Imagine, at two a.m.”

“Next door to her, the Guzman family. Didn’t see anything, didn’t want me to come in, said their kids needed to sleep for school tomorrow told me who lived on the third floor though: a couple of brothers on one side, a family on the other. I didn’t get an answer on any of the top three floors. Fourth floor, like you heard, is empty right now and the fifth floor is Vincent Mendoza on one side, a couple on the other.”

“What about the roof?”

“Nothing there as far as I could tell, but it was crawling with cops. I want to look again.”

“There are pigeons up there?”

“Yeah, I saw a coop.”

“What kind?” 

“Of pigeons? I don’t know. Looked like regular pigeons to me.”

“Damascenes,” Alfred said. “Used to be the thing in Aparo Heights, to raise Damascenes, race them.” He stood, joints creaking a little. “Will you two gentlemen be needing anything else this even—this morning? Your room is ready for you, Master Dick. “

“Thanks, Alfred. Get some sleep. ”

“I will.” Alfred headed toward the stairs. “You should take your own advice. Both of you, actually. It’s quite late.”

“Night, Alfred.”

“Alfred’s right. There’s nothing we can do until morning. You should go to bed.”

Dick huffed a laugh. “Should I? What, are you going to solve this case by yourself tonight?”

“There’s nothing else we can do tonight. Just let me shut off Bruce’s computer and I’ll come up too.”

“Really? Dick didn’t budge. Well if that’s all you’re going to do, I can wait while you power down the Batbox.”

“Okay then.”

“Okay.” Dick was grinning. 

Tim passed him and went up the stairs first. “See you in the morning, then." He said goodnight, but Dick was the only one who actually went to bed.


	3. Chapter 3

The smell of bacon and coffee drifted right ahead of Dick, loping down the stairs “Here you go Mr. There’s-Nothing-Else-We-Can-Do-Tonight.”

“It’s not night anymore.”

“Yeah, and you didn’t do all this just now.” Dick nodded toward the diagrams Tim had sketched out across his screen. “Here,” he said as he handed a plate over to Tim. “I was going to make my special-recipe pancakes. But they’re not for Robins who stay up all night in the Batcave.”

“Polyphasic sleep,” Tim said around a mouthful of toast. “Where’s the bacon?”

“You’re lucky I brought coffee!”

“Hey, I was working.

“Polyphasic sleep sucks creativity, you know?”

“The results are inconclusive.”

“Batman doesn’t even do the catnap on/off thing unless he has to anymore. Wait, He’s not still calling it that, is he? ”

“No, not since-” Tim’s face heated up. “No” 

“I talked to him about putting a sock on the doorknob.”

“Really?” 

“So gullible. No. Are you crazy?” Dick snagged a piece of his toast. “So what’ve you got, Sherlock?” He waved his hand at Tim’s workspace. “It’s all CSI down here.” 

“You’re mixing your murder metaphors.”

“Lot of notes. Bruce would be proud. He called this morning but I thought you were still sacked out.”

“What did he want?”

Dick rolled his eyes. “What do you think he wantes? He wants to talk to you. Because he cares about you, not because he thinks there’s something you can’t handle.” 

“What’d you tell him?”

“I told him you’re a sneaky you-know-what, what do you think?”

“Dick…”

“Okay, seriously? I told him you were doing fine, and keeping an eye on the city. He’s heard about Grauwyler, by the way.”

“How?”

Dick looked pointedly up at the computer, then back to Tim. “Not from me! Tim, you’re like…” he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. ”You think he’s not keyed into the same system you are?”

“This one’s my own.”“AP, Tim. At bare minimum Bruce follows the AP feeds. Anyway, the point is, he knew the name when he saw it. And he says watch out for Bullenwinder.”

The computer dinged and Tim checked his alarm. “GPD tested the eighteen-wheeler for drugs. Nothing.”

“They find the warehouse?”

“Not yet.”

“Somebody needs to tip ‘me off.”

“I will. As soon as I – as _we_ get a little further.”

“How long’s that going to be?”

“Forty-eight hours, max.”

“In other words, at least before Bruce gets back.” Dick didn’t like it, but he didn’t argue. He flapped a hand at Tim’s sketches, rectangles divided into squares with names and arrows sorting between apartments and buildings. “Okay, give me what you got.”

Tim settled back in his chair, happy to be able to show Dick what he’d accomplished; relieved to be back on known ground. Dick wasn’t usually this difficult to please and it made him uncomfortable. This, however, he could do in his sleep. “We went over this first floor last night. Lacey Damico and her twin thirteen-year-olds. Ms. Damico’s a respiratory tech at Gotham General. Was home, didn’t hear a thing over the piano. Next door to her, the Hoppers: Tommy and Myra - he's the superintendent, she's disabled from a right-hemisphere stroke, their daughter Julia and her son Joey.”

“This arrow’s new.” Dick pointed to a line connecting apartment 1A with apartment 5A.

“I think Julia’s dating Carlos Mendoza.”

“She is. How’d you know?”

Tim hid his annoyance that it wasn’t a surprise. “Facebook.”

“She said it’s not serious, but last night, it… seemed kind of serious, just from the way she said it. She doesn’t know where he is, though.”

Tim went for his bigger bombshell, watching Dick’s face carefully. “Carlos had a plane trip booked to Buenaventura.” From the look Dick gave him, he knew Julia hadn't told him that piece of info. “He never got there, though. Got off the plane in Miami and nobody’s seen him since.”

“When was that?”

“Yesterday morning. 

“So he could’ve made it back to Gotham in time to shoot Grauwyler on the roof. Any idea why he had a ticket to Buenaventura?”

“I think he's running drugs for the guy he murdered.” 

“In imported meats?”

“They aren’t smuggling salami to make big money. Not even the ivory or any of the rest of it’s worth enough for a guy like Bullenwinder.”

“Then why no drugs in the truck we saw last night? And why kill the Growler?”

“I don’t know yet, and criminals kill each other all the time.”

“Cowardly and superstitious.” Dick stretched, cracking his neck. “Maybe you’re right. Your charts look good, by the way.”

Tim felt a small rush of pride. “Back down on second floor, we’ve got the Guzman family, Jose and Marta and three kids in A and Constance Trimble, Miss Scott’s friend, the piano playing Cat Lady in B.” Tim took a breath and continued. “On the third floor? Charlie and Nathan Clarke. Both have records. Drugs.”

“Dealing or using?”

“Both. In 3B, we’ve got the Salazar-Powells. Young couple with a six-month old and a two-year old. 4A and 4B are empty. 5A was—or is, if they ever come back, Vince Mendoza and his grandson Carlos. 5B is Doug and Irene Fisher, middle-aged, no kids. He works nights at the power plant, she’s unemployed. Across the street from the Villa apartment we’ve got Emily Scott¸ and across the empty lot from the Villa we’ve got our shops: the dry cleaners, with Mr. and Mrs. Oslo, the coffee shop and the jewelry store that belongs to Dwayne Cox, the guy Miss Scott saw running from the apartment building after the shooting.” Tim tapped on the last square. “End of the row of shops is Mendoza’s grocery, closed since yesterday. Or more correctly, closed since the end of business on Wednesday. It never opened yesterday. ” Tim’s screen lit up with another update. “Growler’s last meal was a hot dog.”

“How are you getting this stuff?”

“Pretty good, huh?” 

“The M.E. gives you a heads-up when he finishes a batch of notes or what?”

“Well,” Tim leaned back in Bruce’s chair, arching his eyebrows. “Let’s just say I have my methods.”

“Uh huh. You’re not pulling this on Bruce too, are you?” 

Up to now they’d both been focused on the computer screen, but at Dick’s tone, Tim turned, really turned to look at him. “Pulling what?”

“This whole Lone Ranger thing.” Dick squinted at him, tilting his head and sizing Tim up. “Nah. You’re not, or Bruce would’ve read you the riot act.” 

“It’s not… it’s not a Lone Ranger thing. Besides, how come you don’t care when Bruce wants to work alone?”

“What are you talking about?”

“If Bruce blows you off, you barely notice. But like, this weekend –”

“You’re trying to blow me off?”

“Well, no. Not trying to blow you—I just didn’t call you–”

Dick snorted at him. “How come I care about you enough to come looking for you when I know you’re alone and you haven’t called me?”

“You didn’t even like that I found the eighteen-wheeler.”

“Of course I didn’t.” Dick rolled his eyes. “Maybe if you’d clued somebody else in. Buddy system, Tim. I don’t want something dumb to happen to you just because you decided to show off.” 

Tim didn’t even know how to explain it without making himself sound pathetic. Way too needy and pathetic. He knew, _knew_ Dick didn’t get it. “I’m not trying to show off,” he finally said. 

“You don’t have to prove yourself, Tim.”

“Dick, you don’t get it.” 

“So explain it to me.” Dick waited, cocking his head, and Tim struggled to find the right words but Dick would never get it, never see how it was different. Dick just _was_. Had been since the day Tim’d met him, easy and confident and sure of how much he mattered. How could he make Dick see how important this was, and why? Tim's heart sank, racing all the way. Dick didn't understand anything. He thought about how to explain it, he really did. But then the computer dinged at him again and what finally came out of his mouth was, “Dick I just… I just want to do a good job while Bruce is gone,” as he stared at the new window that popped open. “You want to hear the 911 call? I’ve got it. Two of them, actually.”

“Two?”

“Two.” Tim pressed his advantage and the distraction. “But one of them’s just dead air. They traced it, though, and it came from Grauwyler’s own phone, which still hasn’t shown up yet. Here’s the other call.” Tim pulled up a sound file and a woman’s voice came over the speakers. It was just matter-of-fact, reporting a shooting on the roof. The caller said she’d heard it but hadn’t seen anything, including who’d been shot. She wouldn’t leave her name and she hung up when the 911 operator pressed her for it. “I don’t recognize the voice.”

“Me either.” Dick sipped his coffee, thoughtful. “So what are your plans for today?”

“First of all? Go upstairs. Get some bacon.”

“You sure you don’t want a hot dog?”

“Maybe after the bacon.” He stretched, and started closing windows on the screen. “But Dick, I want to try out a new alias.”

"Not Alvin?"

"Nope. Got a new one. Jonah. Jonah Green."

#####

“Look,” Dick said as Tim pulled up to the curb. “I won’t cramp your style.”

Tim rolled his eyes. He’d picked one of the low-profile cars to go with his plainclothes disguise, but Nightwing, of course, had hopped in too, and now they walked side by side, toward the 1700 block of Sprang. He’d hoped Dick would get the hint when he’d parked, but no such luck; he’d just reached into the back and scooped up the small pile of laundry Tim had grabbed for cover. “I’ll take those.”

“We can separate in a sec,” Dick said and then he said something else but the sound of a jackhammer drowned out whatever it was. When the noise stopped, he jerked his chin at a hot dog vender parked on the curb and handed Tim the two pairs of slacks and three shirts he’d been carrying. “Mustard or what?”

“Pretend like we’re not together.”

“Sure thing; you go ahead. But one of us needs to ask some questions.”

“You’re up, Nightwing. I’m just a civilian.” Tim was paying for his own dog when Dick made his approach.

“It’s on me,” the vendor said, shoving Nightwing’s five back at him. 

“Thanks. You around here yesterday?” 

“Last night and every Thursday since 1991. This about the murder? Surprised to see him. Haven’t seen that guy in what... five or six years, I guess. Used to be a real tough around here. I heard he did time.”

“He say what he was doing back in the neighborhood?” 

“Probably trying to up the rent just like he’s doing everywhere else that belongs to his boss. Right before he sells out from under them. Asshole—pardon my French, kid,” he said to Tim, “was waiting by the door of the jewelry store, leaning on the buzzer. Then he saw me and got a dog.”

“What’d he do after?” 

“He did what everybody does now. Checked his phone. Tried the door on the grocery, then the jewelry store again but it was still closed too. No surprise there.”

Tim decided to risk it. Jonah Green could ask a question. Jonah Green just happened to be buying a hot dog while a guy talked about a crime from last night. It was only natural. “How do you mean? Shouldn’t it have been open?”

“You try going there when it should be open.” The man snorted, looking from Tim to Nightwing and then back again. “Nevermind. Cox’s just got a lot places to be if you get my drift.”

Tim squinted at him. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” 

“Okay,” said Dick slowly.

The man winked. “Me, I got a construction site to visit.” He rolled his cart toward a sign that said “Future Home of Mendoza Imported Foods.”

The Garden Villas looked different in the daylight, and the shops did too. It was a cold and gray fall day and everything looked a little sad and shabby. Tim ate his dog, eyeing the building and the metal netting that wound around the barren empty lot. Crime scene tape was strung across the hole in the chain-link, detectives’ footprints drying in the mud. A napkin just like the one in Tim’s hand, streaked with ketchup but it could’ve been blood, blew across the lot like a crumpled paper tumbleweed. Dick stood close to where the body had lain and looked up; finishing his hot dog, then reached down and picked up the napkin that was trying to skitter past him with the wind. “It’s not evidence,” Tim said. “We’d have found it last night already and it hasn’t gotten wet.” 

“I hate litterbugs.” Dick crumpled it into his fist.

The grocery was still closed but the jewelry store’s open sign was up on the door. They walked by it, though, and Dick cupped his face against the glass of the coffee shop. “Some girl in there. Might be Sandra. You want to talk to her after you hit the dry cleaners? I can go over to the apartments and ask some questions there.”

Tim had wanted to try his hand at everything here, alone, but what was the point now? Besides, he needed Dick occupied, if he was going to solve this himself. So he threw him a bone. “Nah, go ahead.”

“You want to take the jewelry store or you want me to?”

“You. I’m taking the dry cleaners.”

“So I figured.” Dick wiped mustard from his fingers on the khakis Tim held. 

“Stop it! Someone will see us. Besides, you’ve got a napkin.”

“Authenticity,” Dick said. “For your disguise. Let’s see who gets the most information, okay?” 

“It’s a bet? Fine.”

Dick’s grin was huge and infectious. “Fine.”

Tim let him go on ahead, and because… great. Julia was coming this way, and she had a kid in tow. Must be her son. Tim stayed within hearing range as Nightwing and the girl said hi, chatting back and forth a bit until Dick asked why Joey wasn’t in school on a Friday morning.

“Where do you think we’re going?” The girl put her hands on her hips but she was smiling up at Nightwing with a little sparkle in her eye, the way girls looked at Dick a lot the time, whether he was Nightwing or not. “Somebody kept our whole family up late last night.”

“Hey, your granddad said he was asleep.” Dick crouched down to be at the kid’s eye level and the kid stared at Nightwing in awe, mouth hanging open. 

“Yeah, but he can’t walk to school by himself, and _I_ was tired!” 

“Why can’t he walk by himself?”

“You don’t want to know,” Julia said. “Tough kids in the neighborhood. Bullies.”

“Well, that sounds like maybe I should come along this morning too. What do you think? Joey, isn’t it? What grade are you in?”

Joey’s eyes were as big as saucers and he was too overwhelmed with hero worship to even nod, until Julia prompted him. “Kindergarten,” he was finally whispering when Tim left them where they were and pushed the door on the dry cleaners open. A bell jingled, bringing the woman Tim now thought of as the coffee lady with a crush on Batman out from the back to stand behind the counter. She eyed the pile of clothes Tim dumped it down on her counter, and then she eyed Tim, lifting the first pair of khakis to count the clothing items.

Tim turned when the door opened again, ready to roll his eyes at Dick shadowing him, but instead it was two big thuggish types, and Tim was glad he wasn’t Robin, because it would’ve made things… awkward, at the very least. “You done here?” the bigger of the two men asked, and Tim looked back from them to Mrs. Oslo, before standing a little taller, a little more defiant. “No,” he said staring straight into the eyes of the man he’d thrown in the harbor last night. 

“Looks to me like you’re done here,” the guy who last night, had been labeled ‘Kelly’ on his uniform said. The men just stood, looming, and Tim assessed things, stealing a glance at Mrs. Oslo, who looked alright. Except that her hand, gripping the slacks too hard, was shaking. “I have alterations,” he suddenly said, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “I need… he scanned the items on the counter. My pants. Too short.”

The two goons waited, not moving, and Mrs. Oslo just looked at them, then down at the clothes on the counter, then back at Tim. “You better try these on so I can mark ‘em.”

Tim pretty much tiptoed the way she pointed, trying to eavesdrop while following the woman’s nod to a nearby cubicle where he stripped and changed into the khakis. But the people outside his dressing room dropped their voices too low and he could only catch snippets. The man he’d dunked, however, was adamant about one thing: he wanted the Growler’s cell phone. 

“I don’t know why you’re talking to me,” Tim heard Mrs. Oslo say, and then Tim was out of the dressing room again and she stopped talking so she could wave him onto a platform that was small and square and worn down in the middle. “Too tight too,” Mrs. Oslo said around the pins in her mouth. “Turn around.”

“What we said, lady,” the larger man reiterated. “I want it. My boss wants it. It’s around here somewhere. So pass it along, or there’s gonna be trouble.”

She ignored him, and behind her, the bell and the door rattled as the men left. She pulled at the waistband, looked at where he’d cut out the label, then looked up at Tim, eyes narrowed. “Nice pants, but you should just get yourself a new pair. Could buy a couple nice ones almost anywhere for what these cost you.” She marked her place with a pin. “What do you think?”

Tim turned the way she prodded him so that she could mark another spot. “Looks like that guy was leaning on you’s what I think.”

“Not anything we can’t handle. We take care of our own around here.”

“Somebody took care of Frank Grauwyler.” 

“Good riddance.”

“How come?”

“Got off easy, that one.”

“I heard it was your gun that killed him.”

“What?” 

“Just what I said. Rumor’s going around a .357 was found on the roof. Belongs to your husband.”

She blinked up at Tim. “Who are you?”

“Just an interested bystander.”

“Leonard, come here,” she yelled to the back. When her husband appeared she made Tim repeat himself. 

“What’s it to you?” the man sputtered. “You a cop? You’re not old enough.”

“I have friends on the force.”

Leonard Oslo’s face hardened. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I loaned that gun out a while back to somebody who needed it. For protection. Your friends on the force aren’t doing their job over in this part of the city. We got to look out for ourselves.”

“Who’d you loan it to?”

“Kid, I’ve told you everything I’m going to tell you. I think it’s time for you to leave.” He crossed his arms and Mrs. Oslo pushed a receipt across the counter. “Your pants’ll be ready tomorrow after five. Don’t come back till then.”

#####

Tim stepped out onto the sidewalk and peered into the coffee shop. The toughs he’d just run into weren’t inside, and Tim suspected it was because they’d already been there. So score another one for Jonah Green, and undercover work that let the bad guys show themselves. Although that hadn’t been the reason he’d insisted on going undercover today. Any of the reasons, actually, even if he wasn’t quite yet sure about which of his final options to pick. 

Reason 1: Breaking into Vince’s Market. Robin really didn’t need to be seen doing that. But Jonah Green, if he got caught (and he wouldn’t) could casually loiter around the dumpster behind the place and surreptitiously pick the lock on the back door. It was broad daylight but just one beat-up old junker was back there and only a few random people wandered by while he worked.. Once he got in he searched and he searched and found… absolutely nothing that seemed like it didn't belong there. No trace of any drugs, for example, and even the books balanced. He locked the place back up and slunk over to the Garden Villa Apartments. Which brought him to Reason 2: Breaking into the Mendoza apartment. It was super easy. Up the fire escape, a few minutes with a hasp on a window and he was in. The apartment didn’t yield much at first glance, but two point five hours later, after he’d whipped out his new invention that showed empty spaces in walls, floors and ceilings using sonar, he’d found a loose ceiling tile, and then hit a jackpot: A large leather bag was crammed next to a well-used passport with an elderly man’s picture – Tim recognized Vince Mendoza from this morning’s research - and someone else’s name. Inside the bag were stacks of money that added up to over $150,000. Inside too, was an unused passport with the grandson’s picture and a fake name. 

It wasn’t easy, but Tim got out without being seen and stowed his finds in the wheel of the car he’d left a block away before moving onto the third and final reason he’d gone undercover. This reason had an ‘A’, ‘B’, and ‘C’ option. ‘A’ was the option that Lucius had advised against, and to be honest, it would require being Tim Drake, and probably wouldn’t have worked even then. Or he’d have to pretend to be Dick Grayson, and Tim really didn’t feel up to pulling that off today. Option ‘B’ wasn’t bad, but time was ticking and he thought one-on-one would pay off more than searching a warehouse at the docks, thank you, so ‘C’ it was. Tim hailed a taxi.

The Gotham Country Club was sparser than usual, maybe due to the chill in the air on a gray and overcast day and maybe because nobody liked Hieronymus Bullenwinder or his stinking cigar. The man had somehow gotten in to play today, hobnobbing with the movers and shakers, and Tim congratulated himself both on hacking the guy’s calendar and bribing the caddy who’d actually been in line to do the job. Mr. Big Stuff was indeed, a large man, and he took a golf cart while Tim Green hustled, following the man and three of his cronies from hole to hole. He hauled clubs for seven holes before he finally got the guy in relative privacy and the chance to say something. It was innocuous, just a tester, and Mr. Big nodded, taking the 5 iron from him and gauging his shot. “Never seen you around the clubhouse, kid.”

Tim shouldered the golf bag. “New here. I’m a friend of Carlos Mendoza.”

Big looked back at him for that, and smiled around the cigar in the corner of his mouth. It wasn’t a nice smile. “You got something to tell me, then?”

“Just that I’m as good as him.” 

“He don’t caddy clubs.”

Tim shrugged. “Heard he carries other stuff for you.”

Mr. Big aimed his shot, shifting his heavy body. “You gonna run off too? If you’re a friend of his, where is he?”

“Don’t know. But I know where your money is.”

Bullenwinder squinted at him, and then shook his head slowly, jowls dangling. “This a set up?”

“No way.”

Mr. Big Stuff actually seemed to consider it for a moment, puffing enough to make the ash burn on the end of his smoke, but only a moment. “Go home, kid.” He was mid-back-swing when a man came running out on the green, some guy in a Country Club uniform, and it distracted him enough that he missed his shot. He cursed. 

“Sorry, Mr. Bullenwinder. But some friend of yours called and he really thinks you need to check your messages.”

“I don’t check my phone on the greens,” Big said, loud and angry, but he pulled his phone out anyway, and the three toadies or patrons or whatever they were crowded around him. 

At the same time, Tim’s phone began to vibrate in his pocket - his emergency phone. While the men were gesticulating and yelling at Bullenwinder’s, he slipped behind a tree and pulled out his own. It was Alfred, and Tim tried to think of the last time he’d seen Alfred’s number show up on his Bat-line. He couldn’t. “Alfred, are you okay?” he spit into the thing. 

“I’m fine, Master Tim.”

Tim kept himself from yelling in frustration, but only barely. “Then why did you call me?”

“I need a ride to the airport.”

“What?”

“It’s a place where planes arrive and depart. And since your case is now solved, I thought you might be available.”

“What?” Tim hissed into his phone. “What are you talking about?”

“I was sure you could pick up your GPD feed remotely. I’m watching right now and it’s all over the news. Vince Mendoza has turned himself in. He’s confessed to killing the Growler.”


	4. Chapter 4

By the time Tim was out of the gates to the Country Club, Dick was buzzing him too. “I’m at the car. Where are you?”

Tim gave him the approximate street address of where he’d be in eight minutes, if he continued his intended trajectory toward a pickup point.

“Oh.” There was a long pause. “What are you doing over there?”

“I was trying to follow a lead!”

“You get anything?”

“Not really.”

“Be there in a sec.”

And he was. Tim climbed in the car while furiously trying to pull up his feed and see what was up at GPD. “You going to ask about my lead?”

“Um, yeah, sure! I didn’t want to get on your case, but yeah, what was it?”

“I volunteered to run drugs for Hieronymus Bullenwinder.”

“Really?” Dick turned from the road enough to blink at him. “So?”

“Well… this confession came in. Hey, I think I got it… no, wait.”

“All I heard is that Mendoza walked in and confessed.”

Tim nodded, not really listening. “Also Alfred needs a ride to the airport.” He kept punching in numbers and waited for the feed to download. “What’s up with that, by the way?”

“Bruce wants some document, but I think it’s an excuse to try to get him to take a vacation. He figures if he can get him out of Gotham, he can talk him into dropping by St. Augustine after D.C.”

Tim looked up from what he was doing, confused. “Why St. Augustine?”

“His niece is doing a Shakespeare festival.”

Tim felt like throwing his phone. “I can’t pull up the feed!”

“We’ll be at the cave in a second. What else did you find out today?” When Tim didn’t answer right away, he looked over from the road and raised his eyebrows. “You do remember we had a bet, right?”

Tim shrugged. He’d be able to see the feed down in the cave, but this was the longest ride home ever. He tried to speak but his jaw was tight, so tight, so he breathed in and out and tried to calm down.

“So where’d you hit up Bullenwinder? What happened?”

“The Country Club, and he blew me off.”

Beside him, Dick drove with one hand, casually wheeling along the highway in a way that made Tim want to yell at him to hurry up. “What were we betting, anyway?”

“What?”

“What are our stakes?” When Tim didn’t answer, Dick turned to look at him. “You’re the one who’s all about competition lately. What’re the stakes?”

“Um… I don’t know.”

“Okay, how about…” Dick hummed to himself, relaxed as ever, and Tim kind of wished he could smack him upside the head. “A day.”

“What?” Tim said again.

“Yeah.” Dick nodded to himself. “Winner gets to decide what we do first day we’re done with this case. Loser has to do it.”

“Uh, okay. Whatever, Dick. That’s really not the –”

Dick shrugged. “So? What’ve you got?’

They were nearly home, and Tim was ready to run for the computer. “I found out Vince Mendoza’s been taking a lot of trips out of the country. Under an assumed name. Carlos has a fake passport too, hidden in his apartment.”

“Not on him, wherever that is.”

“Which is surprising.” Tim paused to give his bigger news a bigger punch. “More surprising is that I also found 1.5 K.”

“What?” Dick boggled at him, and Tim had to grin.

“Hidden under a loose ceiling tile.”

“You use your prototype to find it?” Tim nodded. Dick drove into the hidden cave entry, letting out a low whistle, and Tim settled back in the passenger seat, pleased with himself. “Your turn.”

“Okay, the waitress at the coffee shop says it went down like this last night: Grauwyler came in and he couldn’t even sit still. He was pacing. On and off his cell, watching the street. But this is the good part: Somebody else shows up. It’s obviously not who the Growler’s waiting on, but get this – the guy’s in a security uniform. And he’s dripping wet.”

“The guy I dunked.”

“Yeah. He’s dripping water everywhere and angry. Growler’s mad too. They are both looking for Mendoza but he’s not around. So she hears Grauwyler tell the guy you dunked – what was his nametag last night?”

“Kelly.”

“We’ll call him that but we need to go through mug shots and find out his real name. No way that guy doesn’t have a record. Anyway, the Growler tells your dunkee to go over to Mendoza’s apartment and search it. Kelly leaves, fifteen or twenty minutes later Grauwyler takes a call on his cell, then immediately gets up and goes across the street.”

Tim tapped his toes on the floor mat, ready for when Dick stopped the car. “Then what?”

“Then our waitress leaves out the back. She was already open past closing. Doesn’t pay to close up shop on the landlord’s bagman. Next thing she knows Grauwyler’s dead on the news the next day.” Dick pulled the car into a space and Tim put his handle on the door, ready to spring out.

“So, what do you think?”

“I think I need to see this confession.” Tim bolted for the computer.

Ten minutes later, Dick was pulling a sweater over his head as Tim watched the feed. “Your source know anything?”

Tim swallowed and bluffed. “Not… yet.”

“All the news is saying is he walked in and confessed. I wanna know what your guy says.”

“Me too,” Tim said, a little weakly.

“Channel 8 said he hates the guy, killed him over an old grudge. Whoops, gotta get socks.” Over his shoulder he added, “Says the Growler had it coming to him.”

And that’s all the data told Tim too. After watching the tape of the interrogation three times, he still didn’t know much more than that. A feeble-looking man in his seventies sat in interrogation, quietly twisting a paper cup. “I shot him,” he said. “Just like I said when I came in. Then I pushed him off the roof. And that’s all I got to say until I get my lawyer.”

“Where’s his grandson?” Dick, now dressed in plainclothes, popped up at his elbow.

“He hasn’t said.”

“He was blackmailing me and I couldn’t take it anymore,” the old man was saying. “I burned down my old grocery. Grauwyler went down for it, but I was in on it too. Been paying for it ever since. I killed him to stop the blackmail.”

“Wow,” Dick said. “Listen, I’ll be back after I run Alfred to the airport, okay?”

Tim waved at him without looking away from the screen. “How’d you get up on the roof?” an unseen interrogator asked.

“My knee’s not that bad. I made it up there and we fought.” The man gesticulated with his hands. “The gun went off. Next thing I knew he was on me. I pushed him off. “

“Tell me about the fight.”

The old man said he’d borrowed the gun from a friend, for protection, a while back. He then went into some hard-to-believe details on how he’d used it, explaining how he got the drop on a much younger man in the dark and how Grauwyler slipped on the wet roof.

“Anything else?”

The old man’s wrinkled eyes narrowed and closed.“Just that I pushed him off.”

“What about the indications that he was asphyxiated?”

Both the old man and Tim’s mouths dropped open.

####

So maybe it was because the thug burned down his grocery. Maybe, for seven years, Mendoza had been blackmailed into bringing drugs across the border. And suddenly, when Mr. Big was setting him up in a brand new bigger grocery down the street, he snapped. Tim would bet that his grandson was involved, and that somehow Mendoza was protecting him. Maybe Carlos had even been the one to pull the trigger and his grandfather had confessed to save him. Tim thought about this and turned it over in his mind and dressed out and hit the streets as Robin.

No word out there, but a few hours of patrol did him good and the cool afternoon invigorated him, clearing his head. He was just starting to come up with a full theory when Nightwing caught up with him on a rooftop at the corner of Seventeenth and Snyder, where Robin was watching a corner dealer go through the paces. “Who’s he work for?” Dick said.

“Mr. Big. Used to report to Grauwyler but now he reports to Nichols.”

“Nichols?”

“The guy I threw in the harbor. I found his record. Long string of jobs; worked for Big, under Grauwyler for a while. You ever heard of him?”

“Nope.”

“Wonder if Bruce has.”

“You ever call him back this morning?”

“Not yet.”

“You’re scared he’d tell you to stop, and then somehow you can’t… I don’t know, save the world by tomorrow all by yourself.”

“I don’t think I’m going to make it by the end of the weekend.”

“You want a sounding board? We could run through the details again.”

“We’ve been hanging out and going over details for almost twenty-four hours.” Tim just meant it as a fact, just a fact, but he realized he sounded like he’d been wasting time, like he regretted something, as soon as it was out of his mouth. Just to make him feel worse, Dick’s expression, even behind the mask, was as easy to read as ever. “Dick, I’m sorry,” he started, but Nightwing just backed away.

“No, no. It’s fine. I got stuff I need to do anyway.”

“Nightwing, wait,” Tim said, and he said it kind of loud, because Nightwing was moving pretty fast, but Dick didn’t turn around.

#####

It was nearly dusk when the alarm Tim had set in the Mendoza apartment went off. He went up by way of the fire escape, expecting to see Carlos, or maybe some of Big’s thugs rifling the place. Instead there was no one at all, and while Robin stood on the fire escape deciding what to do, the skies above him changed and darkened, filling with the noise of wings. He looked up, and overhead, the air was white and gray and white again, birds cresting and soaring above him, diving and cooing and zigzagging in a great sweeping circle, air thrumming with the electric hum of hundreds of beating feathers and bones. He stood there watching them and then Robin shot his grapple, climbing up and over the roof to join the birds, and he was under the center of their oval arc. Next to him the little coop was white and luminous in the golden hour where day changed to night, making the building and the sky and the feathers of the birds all glow and shimmer. Robin raised a hand to his forehead to shade his eyes from the setting sun and better see the only other person on the rooftop with him, a woman in white, as they both stood silent and still as the cooling air around them pulsed with life and the energy of a multitude of wings.

Slowly, in twos and threes and singly, the pigeons came down, lighting on the rooftop and finding their way into the coop, the woman beckoning them in with a sweep of her arm, gauze flowing from her in the darkening night like white ribbons. Slowly she turned, veils shifting, to face Robin, and she beckoned, this time, to him.

He went to her. “Millicent Mayne.”

“Robin.” Her face was veiled and hidden, but for her eyes, and even only seeing them, he could tell her face had once been beautiful. “It is a pleasure to meet you.”

“Same here,” Tim said, and felt oddly shy.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” She opened her arms and Tim was reminded that she’d been an actress as she stood there in her white gown, arms extended to encompass the skyline, one side of the city already dark and beginning to glitter with electricity that lit up the encroaching night, the other side of the city still lit by the sun; birds above them circling through both halves of the sky, slowly winding downward toward the rooftop.

“Do you know that the city council wants to outlaw these coops?” She watched Tim shake his head slightly.“This building is set to be torn down regardless,” she sighed, her slim shoulders dropping with her arms. “Gotham—parts of it, are very vulnerable right now. Unless the men and women who’ve gone to the capital succeed, huge swaths of the city and its less wealthy citizens will suffer.” She lifted a hand toward the skyline, skin and dress as white as marble against the blue of the night, and she said the next lines like the theatrical star she had once been. “These people will be cast out, to move to less desirable quarters, and the cruelty of the thugs will only worsen.” Mayne turned to him. “They have already done so much damage.”

“Did you kill Grauwyler?”

“No, but I am not sorry he’s dead.”

“Someone saw you here.”

“I’m not the only one who comes up here to contemplate the horizon.” She shook her head. “Not even,” she added, “the only woman who comes up here in white.”

“Robin,” she said, “When I lost my face, because that’s the way I think of it, losing my face, I had to admit things were different. I had to find new ways of… of everything.” He watched her beautiful eyes above the line of the veil. “To others, sometimes it happens differently: they find something better than they had before. Do you understand me, Robin? The old rules do not apply.” She looked away from him, out over the horizon. “I have been watching you, and you… remind me of me. The choices you make? Make sense, but not for things as they exist now.”

The last of the birds was inside the door of the coop now, and she moved to close the door. “You have a place, Robin.” Tim’s breath caught but she kept going. “Just as this one does.” It was full dark now, and she seemed to glow and shimmer more than ever in the moonlight as she stretched out her arm and her hand and a single white bird landed on her finger. She reopened the door and gently guided the bird inside. The door latched softly and Tim realized his eyes were watering. He swiped a hand across them. “Trust that you are loved,” she said. “You’re not required to earn it.” Tim blinked and turned to collect himself. When he turned back, she was gone.

#####

Tim stood for a long while on the rooftop – a very long time. And then he tapped his comlink. “Nightwing,” he said. “Come in, Nightwing.”

There was no answer. “I need…” Tim’s voice dropped and he opened their personal channel. “Nightwing, Come in? I need some help, okay?”

At first he had the terrible fear that Nightwing had switched off his headphone, or that maybe he’d really gone too far, pushed Dick away too much. But then Dick’s voice came over the comm. “What kind of help?”

“I don’t know,” Tim cleared his throat. “Was hoping maybe we could… I don’t know… Go over details?”

“Hang on,” Dick said, and Tim realized he knew him well enough to recognize the sounds, even over the comm, of Dick’s breathing while gliding down somewhere to nail a landing. “Time’s getting pretty short if you’re going to wrap this up in time,” he said, and Tim’s heart skipped a few beats, because he didn’t know if Dick was pulling his chain or being honest, and he didn’t know if he would help him. That maybe he’d gone too far. But then Dick fixed it, and Tim could breathe again. “Where’re you at?”

#####

There were a couple of old lawn chairs somebody’d left up there, and Dick commandeered them while Tim told him about his encounter with Millicent Mayne, although he omitted a large portion of the conversation. Most of it, truth be told.

“Okay, what have we got, then?

Tim pulled out his notes. “Let’s rule out the ones the obvious ones first, by apartment. First floor: Lacey Damico or either kid. Very unlikely. Upstairs, Constance Trimble, too disabled. Next door to her Jose Guzman, Marta Ramos and their three kids. All of them can at least vouch for each other. On the third floor we’ve got Charlie and Nathan Clarke. A roomful of people put Charlie at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting and Nathan Clarke was at his job, repairing a Chevy, according to two different coworkers. Next door we’ve got the Salazar-Powell family. He was at work; she was between shifts, with a baby, an eight-year old and a twelve-year old at home. Tim crossed out five of the apartments. “These two were empty.” He made two more ‘x’s on the fourth floor. “That leaves three apartments with people we can’t verify.” He pointed to the first floor. “Tom Hopper tried to help victim, and by his own admission, was first on the scene. Wife is disabled and his granddaughter… we can’t verify any alibi for her. Supposedly she was with a friend but we can’t seem to locate the friend. Up on the fifth floor we’ve got the Mendozas, one of whom has confessed, the other who’s missing. Next door to them, Irene and Doug Fisher. He’s identified, by time-stamp, on the Stepton Tollway at the time in question. Her, nobody’s seen since day before yesterday.” Tim took a deep breath. “Other people involved in the case? Emily Scott, but I’m writing her off as a busybody, not a murderer. Same with the Oslos. They watch, they’re nosy neighbors, they loaned out their gun. But they didn’t do it.”

“Growler’s boss is gouging their rent, though. And she hates him.”

“I thought you were on their side.”

“I do, but we need to consider everything if we’re doing this old school.

“We are. This how you and Bruce used to do it?”

Dick smiled. “Not always with a touchpad. Although Bruce had a prototype.”

“Of course he did.”

“Of course. Anybody else?”

“The jeweler. Seen running out, swears he never was there.”

“Um…”

“Yeah?

“Tim, I hunted down the hot dog guy.”

“Yeah?”

“And the guy was… a little more forthcoming. I mean, I choked on my dog, but he opened up when it was just me and him.”

Tim’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“The phrase he used,” Dick rolled his eyes “was hide the salami.”

“What?”

“And there were hand motions.” Dick raised his eyebrows meaningfully. “Dwayne Cox. And Mrs. Fisher.”

“Oh.” Tim felt his eyes bulge a little. Not at the idea that people had affairs, but just the lame wording, really. “Oh.”

“He spends a lot of time up there instead of being in his shop while the husband’s at work. Not to say that means he or she couldn’t have shot our victim, just that everybody knows they’re a thing. I went back and confronted Cox. He admitted it. Said he was scared Fisher’d found out, was coming to get him with a gun. Guy’s a coward, but that’s not surprising, I guess.”

Tim folded his arms and sighed. “This is just like when I tried to get in to see Mr. Big. And not at the Country Club.”

“What are you talking about?”

“ I didn’t want to tell you, but I tried to get a meeting with him.”

“Yeah? What happened? And why didn’t you tell me?”

Tim ignored the second question. “I tried to get in as Tim Drake. Since he’d wanted to get Bruce to invest with him, I thought maybe if I went representing W.E., I’d meet him in person.”

“How’d it go?”

“He wouldn’t see me, Dick. He said he’d talk to Bruce. Or he’d talk to you, but not to a kid.”

Dick chucked his shoulder. “Try not to take it too hard. You won’t be sixteen forever, bro.”

Tim rolled his eyes and Dick did it right back at him. “You think it’s personal? He ruffled Tim’s hair, and suddenly Tim realized it had been a while since Dick had even tried to do that. “Knucklehead,” Dick said with a grin. It’s just because you’re young. They sat there like that, smiling at each other – Dick totally smiling and Tim’s smile small but overwhelming, inside. Until Dick’s phone buzzed. He looked down at the number, then back up at Tim. You still not answering his calls?”

“I will. Let’s just… he’s gonna ask me, Dick. Let’s go over this first. Then I promise I’ll talk to him.”

Dick obviously didn’t approve, but he let it slide, and put his phone away, giving Tim the “go on” motion.

“So also there’s Nichols. I think he did it. But… he shot him, suffocated him and threw the guy off the building? He must’ve really hated him. I mean, yeah, his motive could have totally been territory. Petty jealousies, even. He definitely moved up in Big’s organization with Grauwyler gone.”

“Means,” Dick said. “Nichols calls Grauwyler and tells him to meet him on the roof. Says… says Carlos is up there with the money, maybe.”

“Which is why Nichols wants Growler’s cell phone. There’d be a record of the call he made. The last call incoming on the dead guy’s phone would be from the killer.”

“We need proof, if that’s even what happened. Because something still doesn’t make sense.”

“Yeah, I know. I wonder if Nichols has been back to the scene of the crime again.”

“Come on,” Dick said, standing up. “Let’s hit this building one more time. See what we can scare up.”

Down on the sidewalk, Miss Scott was walking Barney, and they decided to check in with her, then work their way up the Garden Villa Apartments.

“No, I haven’t seen a thing,” Emily Scott said. “I’d have called you or the police if I had.”

“So you’re giving law enforcement another try?” Dick said.

“Well, since you brought those two nice police officers over, I think I can work with them after all. Mrs. Oslo and I are in charge of the new neighborhood watch,” she said proudly.

Dick and Tim congratulated her and together they stepped into the apartment building. They started on the first floor, and Lacey Damico answered her door on the first knock. She smiled at Nightwing and Robin, then nodded to one of her twins, who suddenly stood behind the two of them, waiting to get into her own apartment. “Hi,” Lacey said, then, “It go okay, honey?” to her daughter, who said yes. “Go get your sister, then. Her turn.” The child passed her mom and slipped through the door.

“We’re just checking to see if you’ve remembered anything that might help our investigation,” Robin started, only to stop because the other twin needed to get out past her mother. “Do a good job, sweetie,” the mom said, then, beaming, to Nightwing and Robin. “I can’t thank you enough.”

“No problem.”

“What did you do?” Tim asked as soon as they’d made sure Lacey couldn’t help them and were starting up to the stairs. Dick shrugged, eyes looking toward the source of the music, where a slow and stuttering version of “London Bridge” was being clumsily picked out on a piano. “Piano lessons,” he said. “In exchange, the girls are helping the old lady out around the house. Helping clean up after her cats, stuff like that.” He grinned. “She’s nearly blind, but she still can teach a mean um…” he listened, nodding to the plinking keys. “London Bridge.”

Robin leaned back, basking for a second, in Dick’s pure awesomeness. “Okay, so neighborhood watch, piano lessons and cat box duty. Anything else you’ve pulled for these people?”

“Well, a school escort program where the big kids walk the little kids to school to keep them safe from bullies., but you’re the one who’s going to save the neighborhood, I think.”

Tim shook his head. How did he get so lucky? Seriously, how many people got Dick Grayson having faith in them? He almost laughed. Yeah, most of this neighborhood, but also him. He watched Nightwing’s gauntlet as Dick knocked on the Hopper’s door.

He’d expected Tommy or even Julia but it was Mrs. Hopper who answered. She must’ve dragged herself from the couch where she slept, pale nightgown askew and floating around her thin body, her face pulled downwards on one side because of her stroke.

“She’s waiting for me…” someone said behind them and Robin and Nightwing both turned. It was the voice of the woman on the 911 call and Myra Hopper responded with something unintelligible.

“Since her daughter died she’s been like this. But she likes the birds, don’t you honey?”

“You’re Irene Fisher, aren’t you?” Tim said, and the woman nodded. “You made the 911 call.”

“I heard Tommy yelling his ass off, so yeah.”

In Tim’s ear, his comm buzzed. On Batman’s channel, and there really was no way... He looked up at Dick with a raised eyebrow and Dick nodded. “Yeah, you better answer him.”

Tim did, after Dick and the two women headed upstairs, and he was alone in the stairwell. “I’m glad you’ve taken time out of your busy day to say hello,” Bruce said, but he wasn’t mad, not really.

“Been on a case.”

“So I hear. Tell me about it. “

“How’s the deal going?”

“The deal is going fine. It’s trying and unpleasant but I’m not the one doing the presentations, just nodding and supporting urban initiatives. By tomorrow afternoon we should all be on our way home. Sans Alfred, who I’m trying to talk into St. Augustine and a Shakespeare festival.”

“I heard.”

“His niece –you remember Daphne, I’m sure –happens to be there.That’s why I asked for him to bring them, instead of say, you or Dick. Besides, as proficient and capable as he is, and he’s very much of both, Alfred really isn’t very good at patrol. Which is going well, I take it?”

“I… I haven’t sent –”

“No you haven’t. The reports have been perfunctory, at best. Tell me about the case you’re working on. The murder?”

“Twenty-four hours, max, I’ll have it wound up.”

“Details, Tim. One thing that’s always helped me is just talking out the chain of events.”

“You don’t…”

“You think that’s not what I’m doing when I talk to you or Dick or Alfred as a sounding board?”

“You’re not that vocal at it, Bruce.”

Bruce laughed. “To each his own. I’ve got a function to go to tonight and I really want to avoid at least the first hour of congratulatory speeches. I plan to pretend I was with a scarlet woman. Now tell me what’s happened.”

“Well,” Tim said, and suddenly, he felt like he wanted to talk, so he started from the beginning, how he’d heard the rumor from a small-time perp he busted: drugs were coming in on dock. Except there weren’t any drugs at all. Thugs though, so something was up. And then the murder, the missing grandson, and the confession that didn’t quite fit.

“Grauwyler won’t be mourned by many, I’m afraid. “

“Yeah, so far nobody’s cared, really.”

“The man and his cronies did terrible things. Drugs, arson. He did time for the fire that burned down a grocery. It used to be not too far from where you are now, as a matter of fact. But it was the incident years ago where he… earned his nickname, so to speak. No one was able to pin anything on him, but he was very, very guilty.”

“What happened?”

“An explosion at a makeshift drug lab set up in a vacant apartment. The chemist was killed, I believe. It had every sign of being a turf war – this would have been back in… fifteen or sixteen years ago. Grauwyler got hit by a rack of supplies, and that’s what crushed his windpipe. Much worse, there was a small group of students having a study session on the floor above the explosion.” Bruce sighed. “Those chemicals were very flammable.”

“How many?”

“I believe six or seven young people lost their lives. It was a while ago.” Bruce was quiet on the line, and Tim didn’t know what to say. Finally Bruce filled the silence. “We can’t solve every one. We certainly can’t stop every one. But sometimes, the little things we piece together add up.”

#####

So he thinks we should review the whole chain of events,” Tim said when he found Nightwing on the rooftop. “But I think we already did that.”

“Most important one being right here,” Nightwing said, quiet and serious, from where he was crouching beside Myra Hopper. Irene Fisher, or maybe it had been Dick, had dragged one of the lawn chairs from where they’d left them and she was sitting on the far side of the coop. Irene brought the other one next to it and sat down herself. “She likes to come up here,” she said. “Did before her stroke and does now. Tommy can’t stay up here with her all the time and me and some of the others take turns.”

“Whose turn was it Thursday night?” Robin asked.

“Who do you think?” Irene said. “Tommy asked me to, but then Dwayne came by, and I thought...” she pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. “I thought,” she said, “that she’d be okay for a minute while I went down to the apartment for a sec. Rest of it, you should ask Tommy. He’s down working on 4A.”

“No he’s not,” Tim said. “He followed me up a minute ago.”

“She didn’t know what she was doing,” Tommy said, coming out of the shadows and into the moonlight. “Myra, I mean.”

“Or maybe she did,” Robin said. “I looked up the news on that explosion that Growler rigged back in 1995. You didn’t recognize him?”

“I didn’t,” Tommy said.

Robin looked closely at Myra Hopper, at her one good eye. “You did, though, didn’t you?”

She blinked, but she didn’t respond.

“He was all over the papers after it happened.” Tommy took one of Irene’s cigarettes and lit it with a shaking hand. “He was on trial, and his trach tube was a big part of the story. Hell, I think that’s part of what got him off. The jury felt sorry for him. Broke half the bones in his face, broke half his neck, had to have an emergency operation.”

“I think the jury was rigged,” Irene said.

Tim tilted his head, watching Myra. “She didn’t shoot him though.”

“I didn’t see who shot him, but it wasn’t Myra.” Tommy clasped his wife’s claw of a right hand. “I let her come up here, but she didn’t shoot him. I let her come up here just like I always do.”

“Even though a storm was coming,” Nightwing said.

“She likes storms.”

“And he thought I was up here with her anyway.” Irene flicked the ashes on her cigarette.

“So the shot made Hopper come running,” Tim said. “What about you?”

Irene gave him a rather dirty look. “I didn’t make it up here quite yet.”

“You weren’t dressed.”

“No, kid. I wasn’t.”

Nightwing got up from where he’d been. “So when you got up here, what did you see?”

“Well, I saw Myra was okay. That was the most important part. And some guy laid out up here, still breathing, but in bad shape. I didn’t want to move him.”

“And you still didn’t recognize the man who killed your daughter.” Tommy shook his head. “I didn’t see much about him besides that he was in trouble. And then there was the other shot, so I grabbed Myra and we get down inside the building.” He looked at his wife and pushed back a wayward strand of her hair.

“Then Dwayne Cox—”

“Came barreling out of Irene’s and knocked us both down. But in the pitch dark I didn’t know it was Dwayne. I didn’t know it was him until later. I panicked.”

“You left her there,” Tim said, but he didn’t even mean it as a judgment. A man who’d lost a daughter to random violence, knowing that his grandson was downstairs, and thinking a shooter was heading that way? “You went to protect Joey.”

Hopper nodded. “He was fine. But by the time I got back to where Myra should be, she’s gone. I finally get Irene here to answer the door, but Myra’s not in there, either.” He helped himself to another cigarette. “I found her up here.” His hand shook as he flicked Irene’s lighter. “She had her hand on his neck, looked like. I couldn’t figure it out at first, not till I got close.” Hopper breathed out, staring at his wife the whole time, like somehow she was a stranger to him. “But then I saw it. And I knew, I knew…” He shook his head. “His trial—the one he got off on, the trial for killing my girl and those other kids? It was all over the news and so was he. He and his injury were the big story. A murderer and he got off without even a wrist slap.” Tommy swiped at his face, and then looked at his wife, reaching up to wipe something from her cheek, too. The woman wasn’t making a sound, but wetness was leaking from her right eye, and she tried to raise an arm toward the pigeons. Hopper’s voice dropped to a whisper. “So I knew what was going on, why she did it. I didn’t…” he looked into his wife’s eyes. “I don’t blame you, Myra.” He looked back at Tim and Dick. “But I pulled her off him. And I got her off the roof.”

Tim’s voice was clear and loud in the silence that followed, and then he said what Dick and probably even Irene had to be thinking. “You didn’t just go ahead and push Growler off too?”

Tommy Hopper ground out his cigarette. “Wish I had, in a way. But no, kid. No.” He looked out into the distance, shaking his head.

#####

Julia was at the coffee shop, and she smiled when Nightwing and Robin came in. “Thanks,” she said to Dick.

“You’re welcome.”

“Do you want some coffee?”

“Only if you sit down and have some with us.”

She poured three cups and they sat at a small round table. “Did he tell you what he did?” She said to Tim. “They all walk each other to school now, the big kids walk the little ones. So no bullies.”

“All the kids in elementary should get to be in the group,” Dick said, face serious. “No kids left out.”

“Nobody’s left out.”

“Okay, good. Because…”

“No,” she said again. “Even the ones who tried to beat up Joey are acting right. It’s great!” She smiled harder and Tim didn’t want to bring up what they’d come for. Even less so when she added, “And oh, I forgot! Thank you for the neighborhood watch! Miss Emily told me.”

“No problem.”

Julia,” Tim tried. “We’re here to ask you something that’s…”

“It’s sad,” Dick said. “It’s about your mom.”

She frowned. “Alright.”

“Did you know that the man—Grauwyler—the Growler—was responsible for the accident that killed her?”

Julia sat back. If she was faking surprise, she was a pretty good actress. “No,” she said. “I didn’t know. But…” her gaze drifted, thinking. “It makes sense. He started the fire at Carlos’ dad’s store.”

“Julia,” Tim said. “Where is Carlos?”

“He didn’t kill anybody. He doesn’t want to do anything wrong!” “She looked about to cry. That’s why he had to leave!”

“What do you mean?”

“They were trying to make him do what Mr. Mendoza did,” she said. “So he had to run away.”

“Where is he now?”

“They sent him to Columbia but he gave them the slip. Somebody stole the money they gave him, though. So he can’t come back!”

“If he really hasn’t done anything wrong, Julia, he’s okay.”

“Mr. Big will kill him.”

“We’ll help you,” Dick said. “Let us help.”

She bent her head, obviously considering. “They’ll come after him.”

“Batman,” Dick said, “and Robin and I will do everything in our power to protect the innocent. Always. And we’ll get Mr. Big, but we need Carlos’ help.”

Julia nodded, and took a final sip of her coffee before putting it down firmly enough that the table rattled. And then she stood up, went back to the kitchen, and returned with a young man.

#####

“My grandfather’s trying to protect me,” Carlos said, after Julia poured him a cup of coffee. “He’s been trying to protect me for a while.” He scrubbed a hand across his forehead. “That’s all I can say right now.”

Dick put down his cup. “You need to come clean with the police.”

“I’m not going to say anything to incriminate my granddad.”

“Your granddad already incriminated himself,” Tim said. “Now it’s up to you to clear him. Unless he really did kill Grauwyler.”

“He didn’t.” Carlos frowned down at the table. “I wish one of us had, but we didn’t.”

“Why don’t you tell us what happened?”

“I don’t know what happened.”

“Then tell us what you know.”

Carlos pushed back his chair. “My granddad got into trouble with Grauwyler a ways back. He owed the guy.”

“Grauwyler took the rap for arson.”

“Yeah, but they were both in on it for the insurance money. Grauwyler did the time, but they made my granddad pay too. He had to work for them. Until my granddad’s knee got too bad and he couldn’t keep traveling.”

“Then they wanted you.”

Carlos shoulders sagged. “They did. And I was all set to do it, too. My granddad can’t go to jail now, he’s seventy-eight years old! But when I got to Miami, I found out that someone had stolen the money Grauwyler gave me.”

“And your passport.”

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

“Because I found it. Along with Big’s money. That as much as your granddad used to take on his trips?”

“No, it was just a practice run for me. Who had the money?”

“Your granddad,” Dick said. “Looks like he didn’t want you to take the heat for him. He fixed it so you couldn’t try.”

Tim studied the man across the table. “Now it’s time for you to clear his name. He’s not a murderer.”

Carlos rubbed at his eyes. “No. Of course he’s not.”

“You have to,” Julia said, and then he nodded.

Dick stood up. “Come on, we’ll go with you.” All four of them went out into the chilly night, and three of them got into Vince Mendoza’s old Chevy, parked behind the grocery.

“Right behind you,” Tim said. “I’ll take my bike so we can come back and get yours.”

“Meet you at the station, Robin,” Nightwing said, but Tim didn’t actually make it to the station.

#####

Robin almost did get on his bike, but something nagging at the back of his mind wouldn’t quite let him. He climbed the five flights of stairs, and when he got to the top he was glad to see that the Hoppers and Irene Fisher had gone inside. He pulled out the same tool that had helped him find the cash and passports hidden in apartment 5A’s ceiling, and began to scan the walls of the pigeon loft, crouching and bending to beam sound waves against the thing. He scanned every inch, from the baseboards to the roof, and when he was done, he pocketed his awesome sonar transducer next to his treasure, tucking it into his belt. He also saw, standing upright again, that he was no longer alone on the rooftop.

Mr. Big Stuff, Hieronymus Bullenwinder, had an unmistakable silhouette, and now it was limned against the backdrop of Gotham’s skyline, huge and black, blocking out the light. Where his head was shadowed, an orange circle blazed, his cigar smoldering in the darkness. “What a surprise,” Mr. Big said, not sounding surprised at all. “Robin.” He took another puff on his smoke, obviously savoring the moment. “I presume you’re the same young man who approached me at the country club. I’ll take my money, if you really have it. Still want to be a courier?”

“I don’t think so.” Tim spoke slowly, buying himself a little time. Behind him, he sensed someone who’d crept the long way around the perimeter of the roof, sneaking up on his left. He didn’t want to turn his back on Bullenwinder, so he tried to talk until the thug got close enough to take down. “You know, at first I thought you were using Mendoza to bring drugs in to the country.”

Bullenwinder laughed. “Try again, Batboy.”

“Then I realized you weren’t bringing drugs in. You were making so much dirty money you were having people take it out.

“What can I say? I’ve been very successful.”

“Of course, you got it all back again. Just cleaner.” Bullenwinder’s henchman was almost close enough now, and even out of the corner of his eye, Tim recognized the guy. “But I can’t believe you let a small-timer off one of your bagmen and get away with it.”

Nichols lunged at him, and Robin deflected, using his own body weight to flip the guy so that he lay panting between Robin and Big, lying on his back. “This guy killed Grauwyler.”

Bullenwinder took a long drag on his cigar, jowls undulating as he stepped out of the shadows to look first at Robin, then at Nichols, sprawled on the tarpaper. “I’d introduce you two, but I believe you’ve already met.” He prodded Nichols with the toe of his shoe. “Didn’t he try to wash you in the harbor like the money he’s fond of imagining?”

Nichols ignored him. “Vince Mendoza’s made a full confession kid,” he spat out.

Big tilted his head at Nichols, watching him curiously before looking back to Tim. “I’m more aware than you think I am of what my men do, Robin. Don’t be surprised if something happens, eventually, to a double-crosser.” He held out his hand to help Nichols stand. “Maybe sooner than later, even.”

Nichols took the fleshy hand, but as soon as he was up he dropped it like it was hot and backed away a step. “I didn’t do it, boss. You got to know that.”

Big gazed upwards at the night sky. “Looks like rain,” he said, before looking back at the man pleading with him. “Nichols, I’ll deal with you later. You, however,” he smiled at Robin, then jerked his chin, and Tim had a split second to realize a third thug was on his right with the drop on him as something came down hard on the back of his head and everything went black.

#####

Cold. So cold Tim could see his breath in front of his face, because he was freezing like the sides of beef to his right and left. The meat wagon crunched and jolted over gravel, and still Tim worked to get himself off the hook, sweat running down his face for all that it was icy cold in the back of the truck. And then the terrain changed again. Whereas there had been what was obviously pavement, then gravel or dirt, now they were rolling across wood, splashing across it through the rain and Tim’s heart leapt in his chest. The wood was groaning and hollow and even before he heard the sound of a foghorn he knew – in the cold and dark horror he knew –that they were on the docks. The wood thumped below him and creaked and if he didn’t get out of this soon, he wasn’t getting out at all. No one would remember his mom, everything Dick had taught him wouldn’t matter, Bruce would be broken and sad and Alfred wouldn’t have anybody to scold so Tim edged his knees up and lifted that final, infinitesimal space. He could tell by the sounds beneath him they had to be nearing the end of the pier. Would the driver stop and get out so they could push the truck into the bay? Would drag him to the bone saw and bloody table? Terrible thoughts ran through his head and then it didn’t matter anymore. Because his knees were high enough, his legs were high enough, his chest was high enough. He pushed himself upwards, dragging the chain up the curve of the hook. He could feel the thing, listen to the scrape, and it had to be just another breath that would do it. His chest filled with air and he used his expanded rib cage to push just a millimeter higher, and finally, finally unhooked himself from the ceiling.

He clung there, handcuffed still, thighs clamped around a side of icy beef, and that’s when the side of beef started to tear from the hook. Muscle fibers impaled on piece of metal couldn’t support the additional weight of a desperate Robin too, and an awful ripping sound filled the air. For a brief four seconds he hung, legs wrapped around the meat, still cuffed but free of the hook, and then the whole thing crashed down to the slick floor of the meat wagon. His head hit the side of the truck and it must’ve taken a minute or two of his life away, because when he woke, there was nothing. Just a terrible dead silence inside and the muffled sound of a storm beyond the truck. Then the rasping shriek of metal as something was wrenched apart, but it wasn’t the door, because it didn’t open. A cacophony of banging came then, cornering him from all angles, throbbed with his concussion like a whole gang was beating on the truck trying to get at him. Tim pulled himself deeper into the far corner of the truck. He was cuffed and confused, but he still had ways of fighting back. Bruce had shown him nine ways to use the cuffs they put on him, and Dick had shown him how to fight with only his feet. Tim prepared himself. He willed the blood back into his hands and brought his knees up in front of his face, the better to protect and push, balling his fists behind them.

Above him something hit the roof with a dull thud. Someone was trying to get into the truck by way of a panel at the top. Metal screamed as it sheared away. Someone strong was coming in and he’d better be ready…

“Robin?”

“Dick?” he said, and even as confused and spacey as his mind was, he knew he shouldn’t use real names in the field but somehow he just couldn’t find it in himself to care. Because Dick was falling on him, lifting him and wrapping himself around Tim so hard it stopped his shivering, and Dick was holding him tightly, pressed up so tightly against him, that Tim was finally warm.

“You stupid—” Dick started, then stopped himself. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“I just wanted…” Tim tried to speak through chattering teeth.

“What?”

“To impress you, Dick.”

Dick squeezed him more tightly. “You idiot,” he said into Tim’s hair. “You stupid damn idiot.”

“Dick!”

“Shh. I got you.” Dick moved with him, dragging Tim out of the truck and falling with him to the surface of the docks. They were alone, except for three unconscious men lying splayed where Dick had dragged them from the truck and felled them. Alone in rain on the south side of the shipyards but Dick just kind of rocked back and forth, sitting on his butt on the docks in the dark, still holding Tim. “I love you, moron.” Dick’s breath was warm against his temple as he spoke, soft but fierce. “Not because you’re awesome, which you are, or because you’re a good detective, which… you’re the best.” He squeezed Tim for emphasis. “It’s because you’re Tim Drake and you’re a goofball sometimes and you’re prissy about which camera is best and when exactly to shift gears on your bike and you won’t tell me who your contact is at the GPD and—”

“There isn’t a contact.” The words tumbled from Tim’s mouth. “It’s just my hacking.”

Dick laughed, hugging him harder. “You think I don’t know that?” His face was wet with probably more than the rain and suddenly they were both laughing and crying sitting there on the docks. “And if you ever try to do anything like this again, Tim? I swear, I’ll kill you.” He moved his cheek against Tim’s, “You any warmer?” and said into his neck, “you need an ambulance?”

“Please, Dick.” Robin leaned back so Dick could see his face. “Get real.”

“Tell me when you’re ready to get up, then. You’re going to have to ride double with me and I want you to be able to hang on.”

“I can.”

“You sure?”

Dick walked with him, hand around Tim’s shoulder holding him up, and put him on the seat. He almost climbed in front of him, but then he nudged Tim forward. “I don’t want you falling off if you can’t hold on to me. You’re driving.”

“Really?”

“No, not really,” Dick laughed. “I’m right here.” Dick’s warmth caged him, as he sat behind Tim, his chest to Tim’s back, his gauntlets wrapped against Tim’s cold fingers, pressing them around the handle bars. “Lean back on me,” he said, putting his own helmet on Tim, who didn’t really have time to protest. “But don’t crush what I’ve got tucked… well, in my pants.”

“What?” Tim laughed, giddy with relief.

“Yeah, I know. I should have a belt. And yours got stolen. But what I got here?” Dick started the engine, and the motor turned over. “I got a certain cell phone, Timmy boy.”

“They took it out of my belt. I found it in the pigeon coop.”

“How’d you know?”

“I didn’t. But if the killer didn’t have it, Grauwyler must’ve hid it. He wanted Nichols to go down.”

“Oh, he will. It’s got every contact we’d ever want to nail, linked right to the dead bagman and Mr. Big. We’re gonna get the whole shebang. You are, anyway. Now hold on tight.”

#####

Dick’s chocolate chip pancakes were fantastic, even at two a.m. Maybe especially at two a.m. Dick bandaged him up and doped him with ibuprofen and propped him up at the table in the breakfast nook. He cranked up some music and put on his ‘World’s Greatest Cook’ apron and fed Tim pancakes until he thought he would burst.

“I think I won the bet,” Tim said, bleary, full and warm.

“What do you want to do with your day?”

“Debriefing,” Tim said without hesitation.

“You really know how to have fun, Tim. You going to explain the money laundering scheme?”

“With charts and graphs.” Tim yawned. “What fooled me was all the imported stuff. I thought it was smuggling, but most of the money got put in overseas bank accounts.”

“The rest was supposed to come from the imports.”

“On paper, anyway. What are we going to do about Mrs. Hopper? And Mendoza?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“They both broke the law.” Tim’s eyelids were very heavy.

“You want Bruce here for your debrief, don’t you? I mean, that’s kind of the point, right? Show off a little…”

“Yeah.” Tim grinned at him, and he didn’t even care if he looked dopey. “Show you, too.”

“I told you, no more proving anything to me. And news flash, I was there, remember?”

“I haven’t told you every last detail, though. Let me show off.”

Dick huffed a laugh. “We can go over it tomorrow and you, me and Bruce can put our heads together. I say the important thing’s the real bad guys got caught. Big and his whole organization are kaput. You shut ‘em down and they’re going away. Nichols too, and he’s the guy who pushed the Growler off the roof.”

“Yeah, but Myra Hopper might’ve suffocated him.”

“He had massive internal injuries and that’s really not for us to decide. Not like we’re doctors.” Dick waved his last forkful of pancake. “I bet Bruce’ll say to let the law take its course.”

“Probably.”

“And people aren’t going to go too hard on the old lady, under the circumstances.” Dick looked down at Tim’s plate. “You gonna finish those?”

“Nine’s my limit, Dick.”

He helped himself. “And Mendoza’s an old guy who… yeah. I don’t know what they’ll do to him for insurance fraud, but it’s sure better than a murder rap and we don’t even know what kind of case they’d be able to make six years later.”

“I guess so.”

“We helped that neighborhood, Tim. All those people. You and me.” Dick grinned at him. “I’m not going through all that again, though. You better just go ahead and call me next time Bruce goes out of town.”

Tim rolled his eyes, but the put-upon effect was ruined by his smile. “I know.”


End file.
